


War is Hell

by sauropod



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood and Injury, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Fluff, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:48:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 62,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sauropod/pseuds/sauropod
Summary: Klaus' hands were still filthy with dried blood and muck as he fumbled at the clasps, the combination lock on the top. Desperate, blind hope had his heart going a mile a minute.The dial still read that seemingly random set of numbers it had the first time he opened it on the bus, what felt like a lifetime ago.0213-18-02-1967“Please.” Klaus choked. “Please work.”He opened the briefcase.





	1. Chapter 1

There was someone screaming at him, over the din of the the mortar rounds bursting, the whine of the helos overhead, piercing the fog of the deafening buzz in his ears. There’d been a round that had clipped his helmet when the fight first broke out, at oh-dark-thirty this morning, and it’d blown the sound clear out of his left ear.

Dave had held Klaus’ face in his hands, calloused and gritty, cutting through the terrifying white noise of a burst eardrum, until Klaus had grinned back at him, reassuring.

Dave had smiled back, chapped lips against Klaus’ filthy cheek with bruising force. Klaus had felt adrenalin soaring in his blood and for a single moment had felt invincible, like they could do anything, like nothing could possibly stop them. Like he wasn’t scared shitless, clutching the same gun that Gunny had thrown at him, months ago, a different man then than he was now.

The Klaus-that-had-been, his hands had shaken in terror just holding the heavy metal rifle, mumbling in a panic to Gunny how he’d never _killed anyone_ , oh my god, he can’t he cant, and Gunny had hit him across the face, screaming in his face to pull his scrawny drugged out ass together.

Dave had shown him how that night, helped his hands from shaking, how to clean the already beat up AR-15 and oil it, keep it firing clear and true. How that might be the only thing standing between him and ever going home, so he’d better learn it right.

Klaus had cried himself to sleep in the cot next to Dave’s the next night, the stick thin teenage Viet Cong soldier he’d shot in the gut in a panic standing at the foot of the tent, covered in blood and his little eyes full of so much _hate_ , hissing at him in a language Klaus didn’t know but sure as fuck couldn’t help but understand. _It was you, Klaus, you killed him, you killed a human being!_

That had been so long ago now. Now…now the ghosts of the men and boys he’d killed, they were scared of _him,_ not the other way around. When they came back to haunt him, he snarled and grinned manic-wide at them, snapping like a rabid dog. Dave and the others, they never really knew what it was he saw in the dark that they didn’t, but they wrote it off as just one more thing about crazy-ass Klaus.

The gun was still in his other hand, habit worn now. He was never without it. Everywhere he went, every waking moment, was the gun, ghosts, and Dave.

God his head hurt, like it was about to explode, left side packed with cotton tight to stop the bleeding and agonizing quiet, the right ear deafeningly loud with the sounds. They had been at it for hours, the fight hadn’t stopped. The first wave breaking into the second, and they’d run out of their own ammo, started grabbing what they could find of their own dead, the shock of their pale faces too much to even process, compared to the sweet hit of relief to find a handful of full magazines on them.

None of it mattered, now.

Neither did the voice still screaming over the sound of the bullets shrieking through the air over his head, not when the only thing that meant anything in this godforsaken place, in his godforsaken _life_ , was stiff and cold in his arms. He had stopped crying, but he couldn’t tell how long he’d been there, holding Dave’s body close, but that screaming voice hadn’t been there before, and it was getting louder.

Suddenly there were rough hands grabbing at him, tearing him away from Dave.

“No! No, no, no no no,” he started crying again, “Please, no, Dave, no!”

The owner of the voice hit him across the face, the slap startling and sharp enough to break through the fog. The voice, familiar. Gunny’s wide steely eyes stared him right in the face, pain he didn’t show on his ugly mug clear.

“Jesus fuck, boy, move!! We’re clearing out, no time now! Move!!!” Gunny roared, mouth wide and teeth flashing like a snarling gorilla.

Klaus’ hands found his gun in the dark on autopilot, and before he could think it was over his shoulder and at the ready. Gunny spared him a glance, back at the trench where Klaus’ whole world was lying cold, and he forced Klaus not to look back.

“I said _move,_ soldier!!”

Klaus moved.

 

 

…

He didn’t remember how he survived but he did, feet following the boots of Gunny, and the handful of others still breathing he’d pulled out in retreat, marching for miles, lungs burning.

All he could do was think about the feet in front of him and how that was the mission. The mission was important. He had to keep moving, had to keep his gun in his hands, had to keep breathing.

He couldn’t think about how every step took him away from Dave, how he’d never get to see him again, not even to bury him or bring him home to rest. He and Dave had sworn to each other they’d make it home, no matter what happened. All that mattered was the Boots and the Mission.

It was nearly dawn when Gunny got them back to the camp, news of their retreat and the loss of men preceding them. Doc snapped his fingers in Klaus’ face, trying to get him to focus, and Gunny’s hands settled hard against his shoulders forcing him to stop moving forward.

“Son, that’s enough. You’re safe, it’s over.”

Klaus laughed, and he wanted to wince when he heard how broken and awful it sounded.

Gunny’s hands squeezed his shoulders. “It’ll never be over, now, Gunny,” he whispered.

Gunny grunted, unable or unwilling to offer him anything else. His hands were replaced by Doc’s, nudging him to his tent, talking to him in steady measured tones like Klaus could even hear him, one ear blown out and the other deaf to the world. “Alright, kid, come on, we’ve gotta get that ear looked at.”

The cotton rag that’d been tied around his bloody ear came off, and then there were hands and the burn of alcohol that turned into an agonizing pain so deep down in his skull he could barely breath. By the time it faded, the world was blindingly bright, full daylight through his shitty tent and knew with an aching certainty that this was Dave’s bunk, _their_ tent, could still smell him on the pillow.

He clutched it and buried his face deep enough he could hardly breath, sobbing uncontrollably.

When he woke up again, it was dusk, and there was something hard digging into his back underneath the shitty cot. Realization struck Klaus with crystal sober clarity.

“The briefcase.” He muttered with disbelief. “Oh my god, the _briefcase!_ ”

His hands were still filthy with dried blood and muck as he fumbled at the clasps, the combination lock on the front. Desperate, blind hope had his heart going a mile a minute. The dial still read that seemingly random set of numbers it had the first time he opened it on the bus. A lifetime ago.

0213-18-02-1967.

“Please.” Klaus choked. “Please work.”

He opened the briefcase.

 

 

…

The second he blinked again, it was pitch dark and there was a sudden shout followed by the now familiar whistle-bang of a mortar rocket. “Alright Ladies, let’s go, move, move!!” Gunny roared, bursting into the tent, and Klaus looked down at the case and his still bloodied hands and laughed, manic and helpless.

“You okay? Come on, we gotta go!” Dave called next to him, grabbing him by the shoulder to shake him. Klaus spun around and his eyes filled with tears at the sight of him, beautiful sweet Dave there in his fatigues, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, chest smooth and shining with sweat. No gaping hole in his chest.

“You’re alive!” Klaus cried.

Dave laughed, looking at him weirdly, and started tugging on his gear. “Damn, man, what did you smoke? Have we even met?”

Klaus couldn’t decide if that made him want to cry or laugh or scream, that Dave didn’t remember him, of course he wouldn’t, so he just smiled. “You could say that, yeah.”

After that, it took days, weeks before the deja-vu feeling of replaying the past started to fade. It ached deep in his chest when Dave would just brush his shoulder, friendly, cautious, but it was worth it. He knew how this played out now, knew every fight their unit saw, every stray round that took one of their brothers away from them. It wasn’t just Dave he could save, so he poured his frustrations into the fight, desperate to save as many as he could.

Gunny didn’t know how he did it, but he always looked at Klaus with an odd glint in his eye like he suspected. Klaus knew that was impossible but it was funny imagining Gunny had the same sense of deja-vu he did.

Gunny and the boys started calling him Lucky, the third time he managed to shove one of them clear of a round no one saw coming. They were curious, but suspicion gradually turned into a gallows-humor kind of _trust_ in Klaus’ gut. If Lucky was leading them through a minefield, they never hit one, and after a while it stopped feeling like dumb luck and just felt like the truth; Lucky wouldn’t lead them astray, he just knew where to go, how to keep them safe. If he told you to duck, you damn well ducked.

Klaus couldn’t save everyone, and the ones he still lost, he cried even more bitter tears over than he had the first time they’d died, but it was enough to keep it all sane.

He and Dave got closer even faster than they had before, and that night at the dancehall, Klaus didn’t just kiss him, didn’t let it end sweet and innocent and hopeful. He dragged Dave out back and they walked, drunk and staggering, to a seedy motel.

In a rented room with a locked door in the 90 degree night, humidity soaking them to the bone, Klaus took Dave’s virginity with all the aching tenderness he’d dreamed he would if they made it out, Dave looking up at him in starstruck drunken adoration, hands skittish with wonder then eager and gripping, nerves blending into hopeless enthusiasm that made Klaus feel like a teenager all over again.

He and Dave had fumbled around in the dark in their tent before, but it was always hurried, panicked. The knowledge that if anyone saw them they might be just as dead as if there were Viet-cong in the damn bushes kept things rough and fast.

This time it was slow. Klaus hadn’t had the imagination as a 14 year old to conceive of the idea that his own first time should have, could have, been like this, but all he could think was that it _was_ the first time he’d ever fucked someone he _loved_ so that had to count for something.

After both of them were coming down from the high of it, Klaus weak kneed and trembling like a foal as he pulled himself off of Dave’s body and collapsed beside him, Klaus had told him as much.

Dave, he could tell, wanted to be scandalized that Klaus had only been 14. He could feel him still, Dave’s heart in his chest under Klaus’ ear quickening in a rage on behalf of Klaus’ 14 year old self, but instead he just held him closer. “I think I love you, too.” He’d said.

Klaus couldn’t breath around how _happy_ this felt, and even though he knew that tomorrow, they’d get marching orders to move out, towards A Shau, the beginning of the end, it didn’t matter. It was worth it.

He knew in an instant that he’d relive this fucking war again and again, even relive that horrible night he’d lost Dave, just to get to have this moment again.

 

 

…

Klaus still got his eardrum blown out this time, he was so distracted by the mounting panic, but he didn’t care. I just have to save Dave, was the mantra that kept repeating in his head.

It took a split second, the crack-whistle of the heavy 12-7 millimeter from the gun-mounts they’d been firing at, and he just knew.

“Dave!!” He screamed and shoved him with all the force he had. The round hit him like a truck, and he heard Dave shouting, startled and then full blown panicked. The pain, stretching down and buried deep in his leg told him that he’d _won._

Dave was over him, face in his blurry vision, and Klaus could feel his hands shaking as he clutched at the wound, the wetness of blood soaking his pants around the gaping hole in his thigh. “Oh god, Klaus, no, no, please baby, stay with me. Medic!!” Dave screamed into the dark, but Klaus knew no one would answer.

He held a hand up to Dave’s cheek, patting at it numbly, trying to calm him down with the best smile he could muster. God, it hurt, everything hurt.

“I love you,” Klaus whispered.

Dave’s face broke over into agony, tears making clean tracks down his dirt streaked cheeks, and he clutched desperately at Klaus’s hand. “I love you too.” He said.

Klaus heard Gunny’s voice screaming over the battlefield for retreat, and he felt Dave’s grip tighten on him.

The agony turned the world black and quiet.

Klaus woke up to blissful, brutal stillness and quiet, and knew he had to be dead.

He sits up, and sees his body dressed in the same clothes he’d died in, gouge in his pants where the 12.7 round had broken his leg clean in half and torn the muscle to fibers. No blood, leg whole and healthy. “Fuck,” he rasped, and struggled to his feet, half expecting his leg to just give out from under him, but it didn’t. He was on a country road, surrounded by trees, and the wind was soft and warm against his jungle chapped skin.

There was a little girl on a bicycle sitting in the road in front of him, cute little face scrunched up in irritation. “I don’t really like you, Klaus.”

Klaus laughed, a chuckle that spilled over into hysterics. He wanted to cry. He missed Dave already, but he didn’t wish for a second he was here. Dave needed to live.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like you either.” He said.

God looked even more bored and irritated. “Fake news. Like I care. You and your powers, you were always an anomaly. A mistake.”

“You’re telling me!” Klaus exclaimed sarcastically, clutching at imaginary pearls. “Great Scot, I’ve never been told that in my whole life! Speaking of which if dear old Daddy-o’s around could you tell him I said _fuck you very much_. You know, with as much love as possible.”

God scoffed. “Yeah no, I’m not putting up with this. You weren’t even supposed to die. He was. I was okay with _him_ being here.”

The humor left Klaus in an instant. “How about you fuck the hell off. I died, not him. You can’t change that now, you can’t _have him_ , you bitch!”

God looked well passed irritated, now.

“I can have whatever I want. I’m God.” She hissed.

Klaus felt the tears start, the lump in the back of his throat. “Please, don’t. Don’t, he has to live, please you don’t understand!”

“I don’t have to do anything you insolent brat!” God hissed, “I don’t evenhave time for this. It’s not important. Go away.”

Klaus shook with fear. “What? No, you can’t take him!”

“I said _go away!!_ ” God yelled.

Klaus collapse like a rag-doll with his strings cut and blacked out again.

 

 

…

When Klaus came-to again, the entire left side of his body was brilliant blinding agony and he heard himself screaming, thrashing until hands held him down. “Klaus! Oh god, Klaus, stop!!”

Dave.

Klaus pried his eyes open and there was Dave’s beautiful face above him against the backdrop of the medic’s tent. Doc’s needle hit the vein in his elbow and then the world went soft and fuzzy and warm around the edges. “You’re alive,” he whispered to Dave. Dave laughed around his tears. “What are you smoking, babe?”

Klaus chuckled weakly. “Dunno, whatever Doc just gave me.”

Doc snorted. “Morphine. A lot of it, along with a full bag of antibiotics.” He gestured to the IV hanging on the other side, which explained why Klaus felt shivery and that arm felt cold and nasty. He was freezing, the wet heat of the jungle clinging to him and soaking him with sweat, just making it worse.

He’d always hated that part of waking up in the back of the EMT van.

Doc tutted, “You are one fucking germ away from losing that leg, Lucky. When Dave dragged your ass back here, that shit was hanging by a thread, you broke the bone all the way through. I couldn’t even do anything for it but splint it and stitch it up.”

Klaus knew when the drugs wore off, the idea of losing his damn leg would horrify him, but right now all that mattered was the grit and warmth of Dave’s hands on him and the sight of his tear-streaked face.

“Lucky’s tougher than most. He’ll make it.” Dave said with shaking bravado.

Klaus laughed, squeezing his hand back, and giving over to the hazy glow of being high, his eyes falling shut.

He heard Doc clear his throat. “Dave, I just…you need to understand, 10 to 1, he doesn’t survive this. Not here. His leg is more off than on, he lost over half his blood, and he’s been in and out of shock all night, he’s already getting a fever. If I take the leg now he’ll kick it for sure, too much trauma, but we don’t have the shit to fix it. Maybe if we could get him back to Nha Trang, they could get him on a Huey to Command, but you and I both know he wouldn’t make the trip in this condition. Hell, with how fucked the roads are lately and the fucking spooks _you_ might not even make it….Just…all we can do now is keep him comfortable. Help him ride it out. I’m sorry.”

Dave’s hands on him had tightened to a death grip, and they felt blisteringly hot against Klaus’ skin. He was so _cold_.

Dave was crying, shaking, he could hear it in his voice. “Fuck, Doc please, there’s gotta be something! He’s…he’s all I’ve got.”

Doc sighed, and his sounded so tired and heartsore. “Don’t you think I’m tired of losing people too? You think if there was a fucking chance, I’d be trying it? I’m sorry, Dave, I’m so sorry but he wasn’t the only casualty and he won’t be the only new one by the end of the day.”

The tent was quiet except for the sound of Dave’s muffled crying. Doc sighed again. “I’ll be back in a few hours with more morphine. I really am sorry, Dave.”

Dave choked and the second Doc left and the tent flap closed, he sobbed, falling against Klaus’ shoulder. “You have to stay with me Klaus, you hear me? God, baby, please, you have to stay. I can’t live with out you.”

 

…

Klaus woke again outside any awareness of time, floaty still from the drugs and the fever and was fairly certain he was going to die, again. Except God didn’t want him. Did that mean he’d go to Hell? Or purgatory? Maybe some other god would take him, this time. Dave’s head was slumped against his shoulder, limp with sleep. His beautiful face creased with so much worry and exhaustion.

Then something strange hit Klaus. Or rather asserted its presence with a certain pointy uncomfortable edge digging into his back. Specifically what felt like his kidney.

The _briefcase_.

Klaus felt giddy, and he knew it wasn't the drugs for once, started nudging at Dave’s shoulder, so weak he could barely even move. “Dave. Dave! Wake up!” Klaus rasped. Dave woke up with a jolt, and the relief that washed over his tired face was good to see. “You’re awake! Hey, hey baby don’t move, stay still!”

Klaus shook his head. “Under the bed, Dave, the briefcase…you have to…”

Dave’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Do you need me to get Doc for more morphine?”

“No! Listen, fuck… Dave I don’t think I’ve got…too long…gotta listen, okay?” Klaus grabbed blindly at his hands. “The briefcase! The numbers…you gotta put the numbers down in the lock an’ open it, please…I know I’m stoned and fading but I mean it, babe.”

Dave looked pale and distraught but he just nodded. “Okay, yeah, whatever you want, Luck.”

Klaus sighed, and felt the briefcase dragged out from under him, wincing when its absence put even more pressure on his leg. The morphine was really wearing off now, they were running out of time.

Dave tapped his cheek, and Klaus pried his eyes back open. “0800-22-04-2019,” he whispered.

Dave swallowed. “Zero, eight, zero zero, two two, zero four, two zero, one nine. Got it, what now? Lucky? Klaus!!” Dave’s voice was loud in his good ear.

Klaus squeezed his hand around Dave’s arm. “Open it.”

He hoped this worked. But if it didn’t, he really hoped that Dave would forgive him.


	2. Chapter 2

Five was lounging on a stool at the bar in the downstairs parlor, ignoring Allison’s motherly glare at his cup of coffee.

Diego was fiddling with his knives, spinning it thoughtlessly in his hand, narrowly missing gouging his thumb every time it swung around. A nervous tic.

Allison was just teeming with the need to fix what she didn’t even know was wrong, what else was new, and Luther was darting between eyeing her protectively and glaring at the other two.

Business as usual for the Hargreeves.

Luther sighed, and grunted as he stood up. “Look, Five, I get it, but we don’t have a plan, we don’t even know where to start!”

“Besides,” Diego said, “We don’t even have everyone in the Academy here.”

Luther raised an eyebrow at him, “Since when are we counting Vanya?”

Allison gasped, and looked like she wanted to smack him. “Luther!”

Luther blushed a bit, chagrined but the set of his mouth was the same. “What? She’s Number Seven. She never counted, never helped on a mission, she doesn’t even have powers! What difference would it make?”

Allison was scowling, beautiful face screwed up in a pouting moue of rage. “She is _our_ _sister_. Not just mine, Luther, yours too.”

Five shrugged, slurping his coffee, and raised his voice, “Oh come off it, Allison, Luther’s right. Much as it pains me to say it. She’s never been a variable before, she won’t be now. Besides, pretty sure Diego was actually talking about _Klaus_.”

That got both of the two elder siblings quiet and flustered, as they realized that they hadn’t even noticed. Luther puffed up, making what Five mockingly referred to mentally as his “Disappointed Dad” face which worked even less well now that he had a pretty boy head on top of the body of a gorilla on steroids.

“Klaus never helps either, he’s always too busy getting high!” Luther defended.

Five watched the three of them descend into bickering, Diego angry that Luther would try and judge Klaus, Luther angry that Diego would defend that _druggie_ , and Allison upset because they were both upset, and right around when he saw Diego start to tense, primed for a real fight, he sighed, setting down his coffee cup onto its china saucer with a loud clink.

“That’s quite enough, gentlemen!” Five barked, crashing the room into silence, all eyes on him.

“Now if you’re done behaving like the children _you_ all are, I believe you are missing something rather important.” Five stated primly. “Klaus has always been unpredictable. Erratic. It came up in my earlier calculations that he could be involved in the solution to the Apocalypse. I don’t know how, or why, but the math doesn’t lie. Initially I dismissed it outright, considering what a flamboyant drugged-out moron he is—shut up Diego—” he barked, glaring back at his brother who’d immediately opened his mouth to defend Klaus’ honor.

“I ran the numbers again. Something shifted. When Hazel and ChaCha showed up, it shifted a bit, but then yesterday, after they tried to kill that cop, right around then, something shifted in the opposite direction, something completely unexpected.” Five’s voice was getting louder, as he started to pace, and his siblings glanced at each other, wary.

“You’re saying what, exactly?” Luther grumbled, “That Klaus did something to affect the timeline? His powers don’t work like that, Five!”

Five scoffed. “Of course they don’t, you moron. No, if you’d been listening, it started with Hazel and ChaCha! They were doubtlessly hunting for me, now that I’ve gone rogue, and somehow, Klaus is wrapped up in it. The math. Doesn’t. Lie!”

Rant apparently over, he collapsed back down on his stool, smirking wryly.

Allison put a hand on Luther’s chest to stop him from speaking, looking at Five steadily. “I believe you, but it just doesn’t make sense.”

That earned her a withering glare from Five, which she returned. “I’m not saying it’s stupid Five, I’m saying something doesn’t add up. You said…you said when you found us...dead...we were _all_ together, that means Klaus was there too, right? Doesn’t that mean he’s not the missing variable?”

Five grumbled in frustration shaking his head but not offering a reply, and resumed his pacing.

Luther kept scowling, and said “Of course he’s not it, he’s probably off pawning something he stole from this very house, like I said, and any second now he’s gonna come staggering back in here, high as a kite and—”

A brilliant, familiar crack of temporal blue light flashed through the parlor, and in the resulting silence, the metallic clank of a dropped briefcase on the wood floor was deafening.

Five looked up from his coffee, startled and then immediately thrilled.

There, bleeding onto Reginald Hargreeve’s once pristine hardwood floors, was Klaus, limp as a rag-doll in the arms of a stranger covered in dirt and blood. Both wearing fatigues that to Five’s historically trained eye were 60’s army greens. Fascinating. 

The man was barely on his feet, but he held Klaus so tightly his knuckles were white under the layers of what had to be their brother's blood. When he looked up at them, there was no room for shock or confusion at his new surroundings, around the weight of grief and agony in the man’s soft brown eyes. “Please.” He croaked, fresh tears adding the darkened muddy tracks on his cheeks, and his voice was desolate.

“Please, you have to help him, please! I can’t lose him.”

Things got a little chaotic after that, Diego screaming for Grace and Pogo, who appeared, startled and horrified in an instant from the study. A flurry of movement as Luther tried to take Klaus’ limp body from the soldier, who only clung to him tighter.

It was the sight of Grace in her crisp white surgery apron, sweet and clean, her hand gentle on his shoulder, that got the stranger to finally relax and let go of Klaus. “It’ll be alright, son. I’m a nurse, we’ll take care of him, he’s in good hands. Okay? That’s it now.” Grace’s voice was unerringly calm, honeyed and soft, and when Klaus was lifted out of his arms by a terrified looking Luther, the soldier kept his feet for all of about 5 seconds before he collapsed.

Fortunately, Diego was able to catch him before he hit his head. Allison and Diego looked at each other over the Soldier’s still form, Allison looking near to tears and Diego honestly not looking much better, leaving Five feeling ancient and tired.

“Diego, why don’t you help Allison take this man upstairs, get him cleaned up and into some fresh clothes, so that he can rest? One of you should stay with him so he doesn’t panic when he wakes up, he almost assuredly will. Temporal travel tends to…upset one’s equilibrium.”

Diego nodded, looking eager to have something to distract himself, and Allison equallyrelieved to have at least someone to take care of. By the time they had managed to get the larger unconscious man out of sight, Five finished the last swig of his now lukewarm coffee, and set his eyes on the dusty black leather brief case laying haphazardly on the floor.

“Like I said, Delores, the math doesn’t lie.”

 

…

 

Diego was sweating and panting a little more than he wanted to admit by the time he’d managed to get the stranger up the stairs. He’d taken one good look at him and decided there was no other choice but a fireman carry, and his muscles were screaming at him that he hadn’t been working out these past few days nearly as much as he should have. Allison looked like she was politely concealing her hint of amusement.

Diego had turned down her offer of assistance, and she just shaken her head, rolling her eyes.

They ended up in the west side bathroom since it had the big clawfoot tub, and Diego’s ego wasn’t up to holding a naked guy vertical in a shower for however long it took to wash off what ever it was that was caked on. That’d’ve been true even if he’d been Klaus’ size, but Diego was pretty sure the stranger had maybe 30 or 40 pounds and a few inches on _him_ , so he wasn't even sure it’d be possible.

Allison helped support his head as he unloaded him onto the floor, still out as a sack of potatoes, and she glanced up, meeting Diego’s eyes. “God. This is so crazy.”

Diego chuckled, nodding. “Yeah, but what isn’t in this family?”

“Truth,” she said, warm smile on her pretty face making her look a little less stressed.

Diego stood up, and sighed. “Well, which of us is going to get G.I. Joe here undressed? Because I dunno about you, sis, but I’ve had a nose full of him.”

Allison genuinely snorted at that, her hand darting up to try and cover her unladylike amusement, but she still laughed, punching Diego in the shin.

“What, I’m not wrong.” Diego retorted, “He smells like he hasn’t seen a showerin a month.”

That got Allison suddenly sobered, and Diego saw her wince. “He probably hasn't. God, I can only imagine what he must have been through…what Klaus—” She choked.

“Hey.” Diego said softly, squatting next to her and bumping her shoulder. “He’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

She swallowed the lump her throat and shook herself off. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I’ll do it, might need your help getting him into the tub, but then I should be able to get him undressed and cleaned up.”

Diego shrugged, and wedged his arms under the soldier’s limp body. With a solid grunt, managed to hoist him up and unceremoniously deposit him into the bathtub. He tried not to think about how the tacky blood all over the guy’s arms and hands was his baby brother’s as it smeared along the edge of the tub.

Allison gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks, Diego.”

He gave her a mock salute as he stretched his back and stood back up. “What’re brothers for? You sure you're okay with doing this? I can, it’d be no problem.”

Allison shot him a glare over her shoulder. “If I can bathe a three year old in full tantrum mode, I’m pretty sure I can give an unconscious guy a bath too.”

Diego chuckled. “I meant, you know.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of his own crotch, and Allison actually glared at him for real, looking seriously unimpressed.

“Please. If I had a dollar for every time I saw one of you nasty punks naked when I was growing up, I’d be way richer than I already am. Also, in case you missed the memo, I was married, had a kid and everything. You think Claire showed up with a stork?”

Diego snorted, and turned away, “I got it, thanks, he’s all yours, Nurse Allison.”

“Thank you.” Allison said primly. “Think you could scrounge up some clean clothes that would fit him? Either some of Luther’s old stuff or yours might work.”

“Sure thing.” Diego said, and she heard the door closed softly behind him.

 

She took a second to just close her eyes and take in the silence, nerves still coming down, and with a small shiver, she sighed, and opened them again. Freaking out could come later, when her family was safe and whole, and everything was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

“It’s gonna be okay, Alli, you got this, it’s fine.” She muttered under her breath, forcefully clearing her lungs, and opening her eyes.

The soldier was objectively handsome, she could tell even with all the dirt and…stuff on him, boyish features creased under his eyes with exhaustion that didn’t even leave with the rest of his face slack and unconscious. Poor thing, she thought, heart tensing tight in her chest. She could only imagine the horrors he must have seen even as young as he looked, to leave such wear.

She steadied her hands, shaking herself out a little, and reached back to tie back her hair.

“Alright, let’s do this.” She said to herself, forcing a smile at her knocked out patient. “What’dya say, huh? Ready to get clean? Awesome.”

The mud caked boots were practically welded on with how hard packed the clay-rich mud had dried, but she managed to get the laces loosened just enough to tug them off, although the force of the _smell_ of the guys socks was so aggressively awful it nearly bowled her over. She choked, coughing and almost laughed, “Oh my _god_. Boys are so _nasty_. Ew ew ew.”

It took all the dignity she had not to go downstairs for a pair of tongs to take his socks off without touching them, but she got them off.

His feet made her want to cry all over again. His blisters had blisters, bloody and patched over with dirty rags and worn bandages that had long past turned brown with dirt and dried blood. In places, they looked raw and red with infection, and his toes were just one giant bruise. How he’d even stayed _standing_ there when he’d first appeared was a testament to his strength. Or how desperate he was, a part of her mind whispered.

Every step must have been agony, but he’d kept going, to save her brother, to bring him home.

Allison wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and fiercely swore under her breath. She didn’t even know this man’s name, but in that moment, she knew she owed him a debt that she might never repay, but she was determined to start.

The worn cut-off fatigue shirt slipped off easily enough and the undershirt was so filthy she just took it off with the round-edged safety scissors out of the first aid kit she’d pulled out of the towel closet. His pants weren’t much better, and it took her most of 5 minutes to try and finagle them off of them.

She’d mentally figured she might just leave his underwear on in case he woke up in the middle of this to spare him a little bit of dignity, but one sight of how grey-brown and worn they were, and she just blinked in disgust. “Yeah, no, nope, those are coming off, right now. Even Grace couldn’t save those…wooo boy.”

A few snips of the scissors and he was naked in the tub, at last. She wiped at her brow, huffing in satisfaction, and set the scissors down on the pile of filthy rags. Allison quickly grazed her eyes over her patient, still stone cold down for the count, looked for any other injuries. Countless bruises and small scrapes, the backs of his forearms and elbows thick with scars and scabs as well as his knees, a couple of flushed pink-grey clumps of scar tissue from what looked like bullet grazes. A tattoo on his left shoulder, a skull crossed with guns, that read 173rd Airbourne, _Sky Soldiers_.

She very deliberately tried not to even make a glance at his groin, but her hind brain was quick to embarrass her with a subconscious wolf whistle.

Good _catch_ , Klaus, jeez.

Shaking her head to try and clear that thought, laughing at herself a little, she started up the faucets. The hot water pipes creaked and groaned as they sputtered to life, first couple of seconds pale orange with a hint of rust, like always, before it ran clear and warm. She adjusted the cold dial until the water was a comfortable level of warm, not too hot or cold, and plugged the bottom.

A quick rummage around in the shower caddy that sat to the side of the tub yielded a relatively fresh bar of soap and a washrag from the cabinet, and she got to work.

The first scrub down got the tub so dark and murky it looked like hot chocolate but she kept at it until she’d at least run the soap over every where, the majority of his skin no longer caked in filth. After that, she pulled the plug and rinsed the rest of the dirty water clear with the wand, then started the tub to refilling with more clean water. This time, to her satisfaction, the water stayed clear, and the soldiers skin started getting pink and actually clean.

She’d finished his hair and face, torso and was working on his legs when she started in on his feet. His leg jerked out of her grasp and he woke up thrashing with a loud gasp.

Water splashed everywhere as he scrambled, slipping and trying to find a grip, before his eyes whipped around and met hers. “Hey, shh, it’s okay.” She said gently, her hands out like he was spooked horse. His chest was rising and falling too fast, on the edge of a panic attack, but as he moved again his un-bandaged feet slipped into the warm soapy water and his face contorted in agony. “Fuck!” He shouted, and she saw him physically martial the pain back down, his breathing starting to settle, and after a few terrifying seconds, he relaxes a bit and opens his eyes again.

“So.” He said, his voice rich with a slight drawl she couldn’t place. “I guess I’m not dead.”

Allison offered him a hopeful smile. “Nope.”

The stranger chuckled, broken but relieved, and then moved to properly sit back up. It clearly pained him, and for a second she wondered if she’d missed an injury but there wasn’t any blood in the second bath’s water, all of it had come off in the first. He grimaced, and ran a hand over his face. “Where am I then?”

Allison swallowed. “I’m not sure how to say this, but you’re in the future…it’s 2019. I’m Klaus’ sister. You brought him here, back to us, and he’s getting patched up right now, okay. He’s in good hands. You’re safe.”

The man’s hands drifted down to hold himself, arms around his chest, and she could see his shoulders shaking. “Thank Christ.”

Allison chuckled under her breath, “Yeah, well, if you’ve spent any time around Klaus, I guess you’re used to weird. I should have figured the idea of time travel wouldn’t have phased you much.”

He laughed, and looked up at her, brown eyes wet and grateful. “Doll, I’m just good at compartmentalizing. If it means that he’s alive, and I’m alive, then what difference does it make how? The idea that he somehow had a magic fucking briefcase this whole time that _took us to the future_ which apparently is _where he’s from_ …yeah that’s about what I’d expect with Lucky. He never did talk like anybody else I’d ever met. We all just figured he was crazy.”

Allison shrugged, trying not to giggle, and gave him an encouraging smile. “I mean, he is crazy. He’s Klaus.”

The man laughed, for real this time, warm and honest, and he smiled back at her. “You mean it, though, he’s gonna be okay?”

She nodded. “He’s in surgery right now, but he’ll be okay. I promise, he’s in the best hands.”

He exhaled, and started to finally relax, slumping back into the water. “Doc told me he wouldn’t make it, just pumped Lucky full of morphine till he was as high as a kite…when he woke up and he started talking crazy about a briefcase I almost didn’t want to believe him. I know what he’s like when he’s high, he’s a'hundred and fifty pounds of crazy in a'hundred pound sack, but I just…I was ready to do anything he asked, anything he wanted, even if it was just all in his head. Hell, that could’a been the last thing he ever said to me.”

Allison couldn’t help but reach out and set a hand on his shoulder, squeezing to try and give him some kind of comfort.

“You two were close. You love him, don’t you?” She asked, but she was already certain.

He met her eyes again, and this time he looked haunted, wary. An animal backed into a corner, _afraid_.

“He’s the only thing I’ve got.” The man said, challenging and hard now.

Allison softened. “You don’t have to lie, okay. I…look, I don’t know where you’re from, or, as silly as it sounds, _when_ , but Klaus grew up here, and we always knew he wasn’t straight.”

That just seemed to unsettle him more, skittish and defensive. “I was born in '48, and what the hells that supposed to mean, _straight_?”

Allison bit back a groan of frustration. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what people used to call it, and I don’t know that I want to use them to describe my brother. He… likes other men?”

His face twisted in a snarl. “Queer, bent, cocksucker, faggot. Take your pick.”

Allison glared, snarling right back, pointing a finger at him. “See, _those_? Those are the words I was talking about. Here in the future, we don’t call people shit like that, okay?”

He winced, but she could see the anger starting to leave him. “What does it matter? I’ve heard it all before, so has Klaus.”

“That doesn’t make it right! I love my brother, and I want him to be happy, with who ever makes him happy, regardless of what kind of stuff that person’s got between their legs, okay? And if you care about my brother as much it looks like you do, then I’m not okay with you being _ashamed_ of him.”

Allison was starting to build up a head of steam, righteous and ranting, full-on the mama bear defensive, but the wind knocked out of her when she realized how broken and lost the big man in their tub looked, crumpled in on himself.

The silence was painful, and she suddenly felt awful.

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. I know this is a lot... I mean, God, just an hour ago you were in a war zone. It’s just…Klaus has been with some real losers over the years that treated him like shit, and it’s left us all a little protective.”

“You’re his sister, you’re allowed.” He said, quiet and looking at his hands.

“My older sister spit in my face when she found out, told my pops, told the preacher. I barely had enough bones that weren’t broken to limp out of town and get on a bus. I was one of the only volunteers in my unit, never told them why." He laughed bitterly. 

"Klaus was the first guy I’d ever met that seemed…free and just so... wild and happy and not afraid to be himself. It was infectious. Fucking terrifying, took months before I stopped being afraid someone was going to beat the shit out him, and me, for the shit he’d say, for how casually he’d touch me.”

He stirred, water rippling, and he shivered. The water might have been getting cold by now. “So...So, when I say he’s the only thing I’ve got, I mean that I would die before I let anyone take him away from me. I mean that I carried him out of the trenches in A Shau for 10 miles, but I’d’ve carried him a hundred on broken feet, if it meant I got to keep him safe and alive. I—” He choked, and she saw the tears in his eyes.

“I…I love him.” He said it so weakly and afraid it broke Allison’s heart. He swallowed, eyes closing and when he opened them again, they were full of fire, challenging again and _sure_. “I love him.”

She reached over the edge of the tub, not caring that the water soaked her clothes and pulled him into a tight hug. He was stiff with surprise at first, but he relaxed into her embrace and gave her a hug back, wet and soapy arms around her. They stayed there for a while, until Allison felt like she was going to start shivering and realized how cold the water had gotten.

“God, you know, there’s a lot things that are still shitty about the world, okay, don’t get me wrong.” She said, wiping her own tears, “But you have no idea how happy it makes me to be able to tell you that things are different, now. You and Klaus? You don’t have to hide, don’t have to be afraid, okay? You don’t have to pretend like you don’t love my brother, because you can hold his hand or kiss him in public, you could even buy him a ring and get married, legally. Things are different.”

The hope in his eyes was so painfully edged with disbelief it made her encouraging smile crack and she started crying again.

“You really mean it?” He asked.

Allison looked up, wiping her tears and trying to reel it back in, sure that her makeup was a royal mess at this point but not really caring. “Pinky promise, double dog dare, hell _yes_ I mean it.”

His smile was so bright and genuine it was blinding. “God...ain't that something. I’m gonna have to figure out how to make money in the future.”

She bit her lip, sniffled and smiled back, confused. “Huh?”

He met her eyes, still smiling. “You know your brother, doll. You think I could get away with buying him some dime-store floozy ring? He needs a rock to put royalty to shame.”

Allison closed her eyes and started laughing, still crying but this time it was happy. “God, you’re so right.”

He laughed too.

She squeezed his shoulder again, reassuring. “I’m pretty sure you could get him a plastic Halloween spider ring out of a gum-ball machine, and he’d wear that just as proud.”

“He would, wouldn’t he?”

They smiled, interrupted by him shivering a little more violently, and Allison swore under her breath. “Geez, sorry, I can’t believe I forgot, I bet that water’s freezing by now, huh?”

He shrugged, but she could see how cold he was. Boys, trying to put on a tough front like they both hadn’t just ugly cried all over each other. She rolled her eyes, and started up the hot tap again.

After a while, when the shivers subsided, she held out the washcloth and the soap, and coughed, cheeks a little pink. “I didn't quite get around to washing, uh, your, umm…”

He blushed too, and Allison bit her lip, God how precious was he?

“Thanks. I, uh, think I can manage.” He mumbled, awkward.

She smiled, and got up to sit on the toilet, turning away to give him a little privacy. If he’d expected her to leave, he didn’t say anything, just washed himself quickly. She heard some splashing and then the tap shut off with a squeak and the drain started up with a grumble.

She got up to grab some towels, and he started to pull at the edges of the tub to hoist himself up, and she jolted forward barely fast enough to keep him from slipping when he finally put weight on one of his feet. His bitten off shout of pain must have been loud, because Diego’s knocking was quick and loud, and he didn’t even wait for her to respond before opening the door.

Say what you will about her brother in his perpetual Solid Snake “I’m a badass” outfit and his knife fetish, but he took one look at her messed up makeup and red eyes, the large wet patches on her clothes, the puddles on the floor, and the very awake, also red-eyed solider in the tub, blinked once, and shrugged. “Mission accomplished?” He asked her, striding in.

The soldier seemed unsettled by Diego, and started blushing when both of them awkwardly looked down at his now naked body sans bath water coverage. Diego coughed, averting his gaze.

“Looks like that’s a yes. Wanna give our man there a towel, sis?” Diego grumbled, but she could pick out his amusement.

“Oh, yeah, wow, my bad.” She spread out a towel on toilet seat, and gave one to the man, and then gestured for Diego to come help. With a little awkward finagling, they managed to get him up and out of the tub and sitting on the toilet seat cover, with a towel around his waist and another on his shivering shoulders.

Diego gave her a glance at the state of his feet, and she nodded. “Hey, um…okay, I just realized I didn’t even ask your name? I’m Allison, this is Diego, he’s one of Klaus’ brothers.”

The man offered her a smile. “I’m Dave.”

Diego had the med kit out and was rummaging around in it, pulling out bandages, tape, gauze pads and some Neosporin with practiced movements. Allison hated that they both knew every item in that kit, and had cause to use most everything to patch each other up over the years, but right now it was handy. Diego wasn’t as squeamish as she was, and he knew it, so he gave her another nod.

“Hey, Dave, I’m gonna go see if I can find some leftovers to reheat, I’m sure you’re hungry. Diego’s gonna patch up your feet, if that’s okay?” She said gently.

Dave looked at her, grateful, and he nodded. “That sounds great, doll. I’d appreciated it.”

She smiled, and ducked out, equally grateful to get a second to herself.

…


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about making this two chapters since it's a long one, but I decided it'd be too sadistic to leave you hanging in the middle...you're welcome (ﾉ･ -･)ﾉ

Diego watched Allison leave, and turned back to survey his patient. Dave had scars, so did Diego, but his feet had seen better days, and he didn’t blame Allison for not wanting to deal with them. She’d always been the more squeamish of the bunch.

“I’m not gonna sugar-coat it, man. This is gonna sting like a bitch, but it’s gonna feel a lot better when I’m done.” He told Dave. The solider’s face tightened, but his eyes were steady. This wasn’t a man who was a stranger to pain.

“I’ve been marching on ‘em for months, you think that didn’t hurt like a bitch too? I can take it,” Dave said simply.

Diego sighed. “So, where’d you fight? Korea? Vietnam?”

The question was enough a distraction that the alcohol wash caught Dave by surprise, and Diego winced in sympathy as Dave bit of a shout behind clenched teeth. Quickly, he did the other foot, and gave Dave a few seconds to start to control his breathing again and unclench before he started trying to clean out the dirt.

“Vietnam. Got in country in '67, a few months before Klaus did. He and I fought our way to the front lines, better part of a year.” Dave said, quiet.

Diego looked up from his cotton balls and peroxide, and quirked an eyebrow. “ _My_ brother, Klaus? The front lines of the Vietnam War? Hard to believe he had it in him. He’s always been the kind to, uh…escape responsibility.” Diego wondered if that was a delicate enough description for _running away from anything hard or painful and drugging himself to the gills so he doesn’t have to deal with it_. 

Dave laughed, looking up at the ceiling. “I know, we though so too, we all thought he’d be some kind of kill-shy hippie when he first showed up high off his rocker, but he’s got a core of fucking _iron_. He was a demon behind a AR, I’ll tell you that. Saved my life, hell, save all our lives more than once.”

That made Diego pause, genuinely shocked. “Seriously, _Klaus?_ A war hero? I can’t even picture him holding a gun, much less killing somebody.”

Dave shifted, wincing as it pulled at sore muscles. “None of us thought we could be killers, before the war, either. It changes people. Besides, Lucky’s been clean since I met him, and I know it wasn’t easy for him. Neither was killing.”

Diego shook his head in disbelief, trying to picture Klaus, sober, much less a gun wielding soldier, and he just couldn’t get it to click.

“Damn.” He said, simply, still shaking his head. Turned back to his task and patted off the peroxide as gently as he could, mind chewing over the image he couldn’t reconcile with his baby brother.

The one his girl Patch pulled off the street every other weekend for drugs, who’d bounced from rehab, to overdoses, to jail, and back to rehab for the better part of his 20's.

Dave just sat back, spaced out with exhaustion, and thankfully didn’t deliver any more mind-bending revelations.

Diego greased up the sores with anti-bacterial, then gauze and ace-bandages, clean and pale against Dave’s chapped skin, and when he was done he gave Dave’s leg a tap. “Alright, I’ll let you towel off, think you can get dressed, or you want me to help?”

Dave shook his head, and said “I think I can manage.”

“Great. I’ve got some pajama pants here, some socks to help keep the bandages clean, and a few t-shirts and a sweatshirt. Wasn’t sure what would fit you, so if anything’s too small, sorry. Even managed to scrounge up an unopened fresh pack of underwear, so you’re welcome.”

Dave chuckled, shooting him a grateful smile. “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve had clean underwear in a year.”

Diego winced, but smiled, shaking his head. “Poor bastard. Well, they’re all yours, go nuts. You gonna be able to put any weight on those feet?”

Dave took that as an order and tried it out, leveraging himself up off the ledge of the vanity, and his face contorted in pain for a second as his feet took his weight, but he pushed through it and met Diego’s eyes and nodded.

Diego hid his impressed look, “Good. If you make a right, through this door, there’s a room that looks like someone ransacked it and scribbled graffiti all over the walls, you can take a nap there, alright? Dinner should be ready in a bit, I’ll come up and wake you.”

Dave nodded, face still tight, but steady, and he cracked a bit of a smile. “Let me guess, Klaus’ bedroom?”

Diego got up off the tile floor, joints creaking enough to remind him he wasn’t 20 anymore, and snorted. “You’ll know it when you see it. Just holler if you need someone, we’ll all be around.”

He closed the door behind him.

 

…

Diego found Allison downstairs in the kitchen, stirring a pot of what smelled like Mom’s beef stew on the stove. Vanya, looking even more pale and sad than normal, sat at the kitchen top bar, clutching a steaming cup of tea like a lifeline, and her eyes were pained when she met Diego’s. For the first time in a long time, the sight of her, all sad kicked puppy didn’t inspire irritation, just sympathy. This had shaken all of them, almost as bad as when Ben had died. 

The smell of Mom’s cooking, even reheated, was warm and homey, and settled into his bones with comfort in a way he hadn’t felt in a while. He collapsed down into the chair with a groan, and Allison looked up, offering him her own tired smile.

“What a day, huh?” he said.

She snorted, giving Vanya a smile. “Yeah, even by Hargreeves standards, it’s been one for the books.”

Vanya just looked rattled. “Allison was just catching me up…”

Diego snorted, “First Five shows up from the distant apocalyptic future where he apparently got old and even _more_ arrogant, and then Klaus reappears from the past, where he fought in the _Vietnam War_ , I mean, can you even imagine? Klaus, like, _our_ obnoxious weirdo brother, who used to steal Allison’s dresses, and Mom’s heels, roll joints under the table at dinner and steal Dad’s liquor, _that_ Klaus?” Diego asked, still shaking his head, and got up to hunt for a beer in the fridge.

That made Vanya smile weakly, a little color back in her cheeks, and Allison actually smile, made him feel a little better, too. He found a six pack case of some kind of boring middle of the road beer that had to be Luther’s, and vindictively set his mind to drinking _all_ of them even if they tasted like shit. The first sip wasn’t half bad, not that he’d admit it.

Allison shook her head, “I know. Do you think he managed to even kill someone, or do you think he just ran around hysterical and looking for his next fix?”

Diego winced. “Well according to Dave, not only did he kill someone, he killed _many_ someones. Said he was a maniac behind a gun, saved a bunch of people’s lives even. Sober as a saint, too, apparently.”

Allison stopped stirring the soup and looked pale. “God.”

“Right?” Diego agreed. “We might have been underestimating the crazy bastard all these years.”

“That or sobriety makes him a different person,” Vanya said, just enough bitterness to bite, “and I don’t think I’ve talked to Klaus when he was clean since he was 13. Do any of us really know the real him, without the drugs?”

Diego shrugged, and tried to stifle the feeling of betrayal. “Maybe not. Guess we’ll find out.”

They were interrupted by the creaking of the stairs, unsteady foot falls, and then to Dave standing in the doorway, carefully hiding the pain from his feet. He should’ve looked ridiculous in 20 year old Luther’s hand-me-downs, plaid pajama pants and an Umbrella Academy faded t-shirt that looked about one or two sizes too small, but instead he just looked handsome, in a well-worn good ol’ boy way that Luther could never quite capture, for all that he fancied himself a kind of Captain America.

Dave gave them all a weary smile. “Smells great.”

Allison was half way into mother hen mode, disapproving look on her face. “Dave, you really shouldn’t have walked all the way down here, Diego could’ve helped. Besides, you must be tired. You didn’t want to sleep for a while?”

Dave limped over and sat across from Diego, who got up to get him a beer unasked.

“I’ve been tired for months, doll. You sleep an hour or two at a time, when you can. I just…it’s too quiet, here.” Dave said. Diego set the cold beer bottle in front of him, cap already popped off, pleased when Dave’s eyes lit up, and he flashed him a grateful smile.

“I can imagine.” Vanya replied, quiet and haunted.

Dave looked at her, still smiling. “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Dave.”

Vanya smiled back, fleeting but real. “Vanya.”

“Let me guess, another one of Klaus’ siblings. He told me he had a big family.”

Diego snorted. “Yeup, one big happy family, all seven us. We’re all adopted. 'Case that wasn't obvious.”

He didn’t have to look to feel Allison’s glare of _shut up, Diego_.

Dave, however, had a wry look in his eyes as he took a big swig of his beer. “Trust me,” he said, after he swallowed, “I heard about _that_ part. Lucky would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, begging for his _dad_ to let him out of the damn crypt he used to lock him up in, so he wouldn’t be _afraid_ anymore. So, yeah, I know. Y’all probably got the same kind of ‘love and affection’?”

Vanya looked pale and angry, but less fragile than she had a while ago. “You could say that.”

Diego drank in silence, and Allison distracted herself with checking on the soup and her own cocktail.

Dave just drank his beer, and shrugged. “My old man broke half the bones in my body with a tire iron when he found out I was a faggot, and my brother helped. So hey, cheers.”

Vanya flinched, and Diego coughed around his sip, going down the wrong way. He heard Allison’s spoon clatter to the counter, and she hissed. “Jesus. Dave, what did I say about those words, huh? If I won’t let anybody call my brother those, I won’t let you call _yourself_ those either.”

Dave winced, chagrined, but just looked over at her helplessly. “What the hell else am I supposed to call it, then?”

“Gay is a pretty neutral term we use these days,” Vanya offered quietly.

“Gay,” Dave said, like he was sounding it out, “Huh. What, like _happy,_ gay?”

Diego recovered enough use of his windpipe to croak out, “Yeah, pretty much.”

Dave shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t tell if that’s more condescending, or just kinda nice.”

Allison tsked, her smile forced, “Let’s go with nice, and use that, okay?”

Dave smiled back at her, tipping his beer in her direction. “Yeah alright.”

…

They sat in half-awkward silence for a while, Allison and Vanya making small talk about some new recital she was performing at, until the timer went off, and Allison declared the stew hot and the bread in the oven done.

She ordered Dave to stay seated, and set down a steaming bowl in front of him with a flourish. “It’s nothing fancy, but we’ve got about a gallon of the stuff, so just let me know when you want seconds. Or fourths.”

Dave looked positively in awe. “You got it, doll.”

Diego grunted, getting up to help himself. He had half a thought to tell the guy that it wasn’t really quite _polite_ to call a girl “doll” any more, but he figured he’d leave that to the ladies to correct him if it bothered them. So far they seemed nothing but charmed. 

Vanya handed Diego an already filled bowl, with a small smile, and he felt himself returning it little. A peace offering. The bread was homemade, and that alone was something to look forward to, but Mom’s cooking was always amazing.

Dave made a frankly indecent noise over his first bite of buttered bread, and immediately blushed when everyone else’s eyes flew to him. He finished chewing, embarrassed, but the damage was already done, Allison and Vanya were grinning ear to ear. Vanya must’ve made the bread, then. She always used to help Mom with that.

By the time he was done with the first bowl, Dave looked like a man who might’ve had a straight up religious experience. He almost looked like he might want to cry, and Diego smirked into his soup. His mom was the _best_ , android or not. Fight him, bitch, she was _awesome_.

Dave cleared his throat, and said, “I owe you two something fierce, ladies, honestly, I haven’t had a hot meal this good in years. I can’t thank you enough.”

That got both of his sisters blushing, this time. Vanya stammered out a 'you’re welcome', and Allison smiled warmly, looking every inch the gracious host. “I’m glad, and honestly, it’s just reheated soup.”

She laughed dismissively, but Dave shook his head, tucking into what had to be his fourth slice of bread and second bowl of soup. Ordinarily Diego would be throwing kicks under the table if anyone was hogging more than their fair share when there was Mom’s fresh bread on the line, but he figured he could be generous, at least this once. The poor bastard probably hadn’t had a real, hot meal in a long time.

By the time Dave had put away his third bowl, he finally seemed to be slowing down, and Diego got Dave and himself another beer, pleasantly surprised by how…content this felt. Vanya even looked kinda happy, and when he tried to think of the last time _any_ of them had looked like this, had this feeling of _home_. It was startling how long it had been.

 

It didn’t last. Moments like that never did, not in this house.

 

Luther came crashing down from upstairs, looking like he’d been hit by a train, shellshocked and covered in blood, surgery apron still on.

“Oh my god, Luther!” Allison cried, rushing over to him, but he waved her off, eyes trained on Vanya and Diego.

“He…it’s…Klaus is alive, but it’s bad. It’s really bad, Allison.” Luther’s usually steady voice was wet, and rough as gravel. “We need to give him a transfusion, my blood won’t work.”

Diego was up on his feet and rushing up the stairs past Luther’s bulk in a second, training kicking in like the flip of the switch. Vanya stumbled after him, pale and terrified. Allison had her hand over her mouth, on the edge of tears again, and she glanced back at Dave.

Dave had already forced himself to his feet, pain that the action must be causing him buried under the devastation in his eyes, the determined set of his jaw. “Take me to him.”

Luther tried to stammer through how the surgery room needed to be kept sterile and he couldn’t just be allowed in, but Allison silenced him with a look of pure rage.

“Luther, no! Just, shut up, don’t try that bullshit with me, how would you feel if it were me, on that table?” She hissed, jabbing a finger at his chest. Luther looked sick, lines on his face deep and he nodded.

“O-of course. Let’s go.”

When Allison looked back, she found Dave right behind her, strides just as long and powerful as Luther’s, for all that he had every right to be limping slower than Pogo.

She closed her eyes, desperately praying to anyone that could hear her, not to take her brother away.

…

 

The sight that greeted him was gruesome, and Diego wanted to gag at the sight of all the blood on his Mom, sweet angelic _Mom_ ’s apron, up to her elbows with it, and Klaus was paler than a ghost on the table, limp and lifeless, countless wires and tubes attached to him, oxygen mask on his face. His leg looked like a eldritch nightmare, black and blue with deep tissue bruises, covered in fresh and dried blood, what had to be yards of jagged black stitches holding the edges of the massive rend in his flesh together, spreading out from where the bullet must have struck him in a horrible web.

“Mom!” He cried, and her face stayed the same, but he could see how her eyes softened with relief to see him.

“Oh, Diego, good, you’re here, darling. We need to start a transfusion, alright?” She said softly. He could hear the faintest edge of nerves, panic, buzzing in her voice, and it made him want to hold her tight, but there wasn’t time. Maybe Dad had known there'd be a day when she needed to do this to save one of her children, but she hadn't known it. This scared her, he could tell. 

“Whatever you need, Mom, I’m here.” Diego shucked off his shoulder holster, and tugged off his sweater. Mom pulled up a chair, right next to the table, and as she set up the tubing, cuffing his extended arm, he couldn’t help but take Klaus’ hand. It was trembling and fever hot, limp in his hand, and Diego winced, but kept holding it. He could feel the thready pulse of Klaus’ heart in his wrist, and there was no way he was gonna let go of that.

“You’re gonna be okay, Klaus, okay? We got you, you’re gonna be fine.”

There was a pinch, and then Mom had it set up, Diego felt his arm go a little cold as the blood flow started, filling the tubing and the bag she’d rigged on the table. He kept holding Klaus’ hand.

“That feel okay, Diego?” Mom asked.

Diego nodded. On the edge of his vision he saw her go to touch his shoulder, before her hand shook and she stopped it. She must’ve realized that it was covered in blood, and Diego thought about just telling her it didn’t matter, but she pulled away.

Vanya arrived, staggering and out of breath, and her coltish eyes took in the room with unrestricted terror. “Oh god, Klaus!” She gasped.

Diego didn’t even take a second to think about it, just held out his free arm and she rushed to him, latching onto his side in a hug, crying. He squeezed her back, grateful for the feeling of another person, warm and breathing, to steady him. The room was cold, and without the shirt and with the blood he was losing gladly, he was already starting to feel it.

“It will be alright, Miss Vanya.” Pogo tried to reassure her, hobbling his way in carrying a tray of bandages and antiseptic.

Diego met their butler’s eyes, and held it, fierce.

Luther’s voice from the doorway was harsh in a way Diego had rarely heard it, and he growled, “Don’t tell her it’s going to be alright if it’s _not_ , Pogo. How is he? The _truth_.”

For once, old Reginald’s Number One and Number Two were on the same page, Diego thought vindictively as he held onto Vanya protectively.

Allison stood behind Luther’s bulk, looking as scared and pale as Diego felt, and Dave…Dave looked a million miles and sixty years away, staring at Klaus like if he blinked, the whole world would stop and slip from his fingers.

Pogo coughed, and looked at the children, every minute of his long years, weary and exhausted on his haggard face.

“We have done what can be done, Master Luther. Your brother sustained a complex comminuted fracture of his left femur, due to the impact of a large caliber bullet. The bone was more powder than pieces in places, I’m afraid, and the bullet itself caused immense damage to the surrounding tissues. It is only by grave fortune that his femoral artery wasn’t severed by the trauma, or he would not have even survived long enough to be pulled from the battle field. We’ve supported the bone internally as best we can, and cauterized the bleeding, stitched everything up, but he already had succumb to an infection. The trauma of removing the bullet, as well, was...enough to send any lesser man into shock.”

Dave staggered forward, his footsteps unsteady and slow, and if it startled Pogo that the stranger was suddenly pushing past him to get to Klaus’ side, he hid it well. Dave didn’t even look like he’d _heard_ anything, tears on his face as he held onto Klaus’ uninjured shoulder, his other hand, unseeing.

The silent devastation in his eyes was too hard for Diego to even watch.

Pogo sighed, and motioned to the mostly full blood bag on the tray next to Diego, spurring Grace into action. She unclipped it from the line coming off of Diego’s arm, and transferred it to the IV in Klaus’ arm, swift and sure. Diego gestured for her to hook up another one.

“Diego, that was a full half a liter, it wouldn’t be good for your health to take another, honey.” Mom said softly, and he started to shake his head, ready to insist, when Vanya pulled away from his side. Her tears streaked face was blotchy and red, and she sniffed, wiping her nose and tried to smile at Mom.

“Don’t be stupid, Diego. Mom, take some of mine, okay?” She whispered.

Grace smiled warmly, and started to make the preps when Pogo cleared his throat.

“No.” Pogo said sharply.

Vanya and Mom both looked up, startled. “What?”

Pogo shook his head, meeting Vanya’s eyes sternly, disapproving. “You know why, Miss Vanya. Your medication could have an effect on your blood. It’s _polluted_.”

Vanya flinched, and started to withdraw, and he heard Allison sniffle, pushing away from Luther to offer her own arm. “That’s fine, take mine. We’re all compatible, remember?”

Pogo started to agree but Vanya’s voice cut through, harder and determined, louder this time. “I can do it.”

Allison’s face scrunched up in confusion, “Vanya, Pogo just said, your medication—”

“I stopped taking it, okay?! It’s _fine_ ,” Vanya spat.

The room was startled and silent, save the sound of the machines Klaus was hooked up to, the beeps and mechanical whirs.

“Vanya…” Allison started to protest, hesitant, but Diego met her eyes and shook his head.

Diego cleared his throat, and vacated his seat, tapping the wood and gesturing for Vanya to sit. He said, “Hey, it’s okay, she’s got it. Go ahead, Vanya.”

Vanya smiled at him, small but pleased, and Diego nodded for Mom to start.

Pogo’s displeasure was clear on his face, but he withheld his judgement, for which Diego was grateful.

Mom busied herself with the second transfusion rig, and everyone seemed to just be…stuck in stillness and silence, now, unwilling to move or speak, afraid that it would upset the equilibrium.

They had a few long minutes of quiet, unsettled and scared, before the machine behind Klaus that had been softly beeping as it rose and fell with Klaus’ heart started going insane, beeping and blaring furiously, one long high pitched note, and Diego couldn’t breath.

 

Flatline.

 

“No,” He heard himself say in denial.

Dave didn’t even respond, until Luther pushed him back, held him away so that Grace to bring the shock paddles down on Klaus’ too-pale, bony chest.

Pogo adjusted the charger, and barked at Grace, “Clear!”

There was a high pitched whine, as the paddles charged, and then a jolting thud as they connected across Klaus’ chest. His body jumped, but the machine kept flatlining, nothing.

Allison reached out to Dave, pulling him away, and Dave was watching at the foot of the bed like he didn’t even _understand,_ eyes glued to Klaus in incomprehension. There wasn’t time to explain, not when the second try with the paddles didn’t work either.

“Klaus, come on, please," Diego hissed, begging, "Don’t do this to us, don’t do this to _him_ , he loves you, he needs you, you dumbass, you can’t _die_ , not _now_.” 

Pogo motioned for Grace a third time, and Diego felt sick, could smell his brother’s skin _charring_ under the paddles this time, and it still wasn’t enough.

The room was dead quiet around the machine's whining blare, he couldn’t even hear anyone breathing, until he heard Dave’s voice, so horribly broken, “Klaus?”

The machine kept going, like they didn’t _know_ , and he could hardly take it.

Pogo cleared his throat, and looked at Grace. “Grace. The formula, if you please.”

Luther gasped, and leapt into action, forcing Grace and Pogo violently away from Klaus’ body, so hard they both fell staggering into the drawers and other equipment with a clatter.

“No! Don’t you fucking _dare,_  Pogo, fuck, you _can’t_ , how could you even think—” Luther barked, and Pogo got to his feet, resignation clear in eyes.

“Master Luther! Calm yourself!! We have no other choice, would you have your brother _die_ here? It is not the same…as what we used to save you, my boy, please, you need to let—”

The room was chaos, as Luther pushed him back again, looming protectively over his brother, and he slapped at Klaus’s face, tears in his eyes as he fumbled to grab the paddles.

“Come on, Klaus, come _ON!_ ” He shouted, shocking him again.

The smell was horrific. Diego could see the welts, red and furious against the grey of Klaus’ chest, and he wanted to close his eyes, but couldn’t look away. He felt Vanya hold onto him, and he buried her face in his shoulder to keep her from watching.

The paddles whined and thudded, again. The blare of the flatline, still, god the _noise._

Luther hit Klaus with the highest setting he could, again, again, and then there was a horrible crash as Luther destroyed the heart monitor in a fit of rage and despair.

The resulting silence was deafening.

 

“Luther.” Allison whispered. “Luther, please.”

Luther didn’t respond, trying to turn up the voltage even higher, even though it was already maxed out, paddles still in his hands.

“Luther, no!!” Allison screamed, tears on her pretty face. “Just _stop!!_ It’s—” Her voice cracked, crying, “It’s over. You have to stop.”

Luther choked, looking back at her in horrible fear, and the paddles dropped to the ground.

Diego felt his own tears hot on his cheeks as he clung to Vanya, still watching.

 _Please_. He begged, whatever creator or asshole deity was up there.

 

The room was suddenly full of a familiar burst of blue light and a shockwave of wind of sound, and Five appeared, boyish eyes wild and exhilarated, manic grin on his face.

“MOVE!” He screamed at everyone, forcing his way past Luther’s bulk to reach Klaus, and Diego saw his fist swing back, above his head, before he brought it down with brutal force onto Klaus’ chest.

In his hand was a large syringe, full of some kind of milky white liquid, and he depressed the plunger.

Five panted, still grinning, and let go, stepping back and surveying the scene.

There was nothing, no one moved, fuck, no one breathed or even stirred, waiting for anything for long seconds. The sound of his own heartbeat was all he could hear.

 

Klaus’ upper body leapt off the table with a huge strangled gasp, and his hand shot out, still covered in wires, to support himself. In the stunned silence, Klaus drank in heavy gulps of air from the mask before tearing it off his face, shaking himself like a dog.

“Jesus _fuck!_ ” Klaus shouted, voice raspy as gravel.

He kept panting, chest rising and falling in huge lungfuls of air like he’d just surfaced, nearly drowning. Diego felt his heart pick back up with a lurch, relief and disbelief warring and he just stared.

Klaus was _sitting up_ , weak and shaking like a foal, and he just looked down at the comically oversized syringe sticking out of his chest oddly, before plucking it loose with a wince.

“Huh,” He muttered, dropping it, and when he looked up, Diego saw that his eyes were glazed over with _white_ , pure and milky like they’d rolled back in his skull, practically _glowing_.

Klaus looked at Five, blind but seeing, and he giggled, fucking _giggled,_ and held out a hand in Five’s smug looking direction.

Five gave him a high-five, shaking his head. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Klaus.” Five said mildly.

 

Klaus giggled again, hysterical and shivery, like Five had shot him through with a adrenalin instead of whatever freaky glow-juice that syringe had been full of, and his ghost-white eyes scanned around until they found Dave, standing shell-shocked at the foot of the bed, tear tracks staining his handsome face, slack with disbelief.

“Hey Dave.” Klaus whispered, his face warming in an easy smile.

Dave’s face cracked, sobbing, around his answering smile. “Hey Lucky,” he croaked. He moved on autopilot, rushing to Klaus’ side in an instant, burying his tears in Klaus’ neck clutching him desperately. His hands were shaking, ghosting over every bit of Klaus he could touch before sinking into his sweat-drenched curls. Dave’s sob was loud and ugly, muffled against Klaus’ temple as he pressed a kiss to it.

Klaus’s hand, still covered in wires from the monitor and the IV, patted Dave’s shaking back with drunken clumsiness. “Aww, hey, hey, s’okay baby, shh,” Klaus whispered, and that just made Dave cry even harder, but he was smiling.

Klaus shivered, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were back to their usual pale grey-green.

He took a deep breath again, wincing, and patted Dave again. “Not ta’ spoil the moment or anything,” Klaus drawled, singsonging and sounding loopy with exhaustion, “But I kinda feel like steam rolled, barbecued _shit_ right now. Iz’zit cool if I lay down?”

Dave swallowed, clearing his nose noisily and nodded, still smiling “Of course, Luck, let’s get you down, okay?”

He eased Klaus back down onto the table with aching tenderness, and Grace was there in an instant with a pillow to put under his head. Klaus lolled his head towards her, sunny smile on his face, and he thanked her.

Diego took a second to just catch his breath, adrenalin coming down like a bitch, and he looked around the equally shell-shocked room.

 

Five just had his hands in his pockets, smug ass look on his face and he shrugged. “I do so enjoy these little family get togethers, don’t you, kids?” He said, sarcastically.

 

Diego swore under his breath, still shaking his head in disbelief, and he heard Luther and Allison starting to wipe at their own faces, clear their throats and try and pull themselves back together, felt Vanya doing the same beside him.

Mom hung another bag of morphine solution, along with Vanya’s blood, patted Klaus’s head, and started making herself busy with the mess. Like they hadn’t all just watched Klaus _die_ right there on that table, like it was just another day. Unbelievable.

Allison met Diego’s eyes, her own disbelief and relief bubbling past the drying tears.

Klaus broke the tense silence himself as he shifted to glance down past his feet and to the sides, at the scene in front of him past Dave who was still glued to his side slumped over the operating table.

“Man, you guys don’t look so hot. See, Davey-baby, what’d I tell ya, future’s seriously overrated, look at all these cute, sad little assholes,” he was high enough on the pain meds to be slurring a little, giddy and silly, and for once, Diego didn’t feel a twinge of irritation, just relief. Klaus was _alive_ , thank god.

Dave sniffled, trying not to laugh, and Allison scoffed in surprise, almost indignant. “Excuse _you_ , we just watched you _die_ , you little shit,” she exclaimed, trying for outrage, but her voice was still stuffy with tears. 

Klaus laughed, hand flailing up just to fall down in a gesture that was lost to his lack of motor control.

“Man, I died _again_? Whoopsies, my bad guys,” Klaus said.

Allison was shaking her head, but there was a reluctant smile tugging at her lips. She glanced at Luther, as if to say, _wow, good old Klaus_ , _he really is back_. Luther still just looked like a sad, kicked puppy in giant-ape form, eyes red rimmed, and he wiped at his nose.

“Yeah,  _your bad_.” Luther grumbled. “Just…can you not do that _again_? I'm ordering you not to, I'm Number One, I can do that...It didn’t go over so great.”

Klaus snorted. His chest was still rising and falling a little too shallow, but after a single, horrible minute of it _not_ doing that, it was a glorious sight.

Luther huffed under his breath and set about helping Mom put the equipment back up.

Diego raised an eyebrow at Five. “So…you gonna explain what just happened?”

Five shrugged. “Irrelevant. I’ll explain later. Is there coffee?” and with that he phased out and disappeared again.

 

Diego grumbled, shaking his head. “Good old Five.” He muttered under his breath, and he heard Vanya chuckle softly.

Klaus’s arm that was wrapped around Dave fidgeted, doodling absently along his shoulder, tapping out rhythms only he could hear, before he seemed to get stuck on a thought that crossed his face with something other than stoned cheerfulness.

“Hey, Dave, I can’t really feel it, but did Doc have to take my leg off or is it still there? I mean…if it’s gone...you’ll still think I’m pretty right?” Klaus asked.

Dave winced, stirring and sitting up, looking back at Klaus with a serious, determined look on his face. “You even gotta ask, Lucky?”

Klaus giggled and his hand slipped from Dave’s shoulder and up into his hair to tease at his hair. “Nah. I know. I’m gonna be such a sexy pirate.”

Dave coughed, smiling genuinely and shaking his head. “Your leg’s still on, you idjit.”

Klaus almost looked disappointed, but Dave gave him a kiss, gentle and sweet to his temple. “You’ll be happy about it, later, okay, I promise.”

Pogo coughed, clearing his throat wetly, and looked at them with determined weariness. Dave’s eyes bugged out a little, registering for the first time that there was a _talking monkey in a tweed suit_ standing next to him, but he seemed to take it well enough in stride.

Pogo spoke gently, “I believe this has all been quite enough for one day, don’t you think? Now, Grace and I will take it from here. If Master Klaus can make jokes and throw insults about his predicament, I believe he is more than well enough to _remain_ here among us, isn’t that right?”

Klaus’ hand made a wobbly thumbs up from the bed, and he giggled, “Yeah buddy! Man I’m tired, Dave, you tired? Come on, come sleep with me, there's room. Who’s got the night watch tonight? They can’t make me take it, right, I’m a pirate, now.”

Luther and Allison started to head out, almost unwilling, but the weight of Pogo’s insistent stare was enough to convince them.

Dave smiled, rubbing Klaus’ cheek fondly. “Not us, Lucky, we can sleep,” he said.

Klaus rolled his head over and beamed at him. “Awesome. Night watch sucks ass and I’m so, soooo tired. I wanna sleep for _days_.”

Diego got up to follow Allison and Luther out, tugging Vanya along with him, and he heard Dave clear his nose again, “We can do that, babe, we can do whatever you want.  We’re safe now.”

“We made it out, huh? Back home?” Klaus murmured sleepily.

Dave choked, fresh tears in the back of his throat by the sound of it, but Diego could hear how happy, how relieved he was, when he replied, “Yeah, Lucky, we made it out. Just like I promised.”

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the love and comments! (ง •̀ω•́)ง✧


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the love and comments! 
> 
> Enjoy! 🖤

Klaus woke up to the sound of soft breathing, warm against his neck, and the steady beeps of a hospital machine. The world had comfortable fuzziness to it that he could easily place as the sweet serenity of a morphine high, and he chuckled. There goes his sobriety coin, huh? Not that Ralph down at the clinic would’ve ever believed him. No way _Klaus Hargreeves_ sobered up for over a _year_. Almost 2 years, counting the 2nd round in ‘Nam.

His hands were kinda cold, as he started to try and move, the familiar pull of an IV in his right arm and the plastic pressure on his forefinger of the heart monitor. God, his eyes felt heavy, Jesus, how much had he _had_ , goddamn. Klaus giggled a little under his breath as he tried to get his other hand to cooperate in lifting up off the blankets and up to rub at his eyes. Motor coordination was kinda shot to hell, but he managed to get the muscles to clench and fire, enough the scrub clumsily at his crusty eyes.

Once they were clear he blinked, wincing at even the mild sunlight that hit his eyes, but after a few more blinks he started to adjust. It was then that he realized he was staring up at an ornately carved Victorian ceiling, pale ivory paint and wood inlay.

Ceilings belonging to a cold, empty mansion he’d spent many a night in his teenage years looking up at from the floor, stoned as hell, tracing the swirls and patterns with his fingers in the air. _The Academy_. Wait, the Academy?!

Klaus jerked in alarm, jolting up off the angled bed, and nearly screamed at the sharp spike of pain that lanced up his left leg at the movement. “Okay, ouch, yeah, bad idea. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Klaus hissed under his breath.

He forced the air out of his lungs in steady, long exhales, like Dave had taught him to do the first time he’d gotten a bullet graze, deep into the back of his shoulder. Dave had held Klaus’ face in his hands as Klaus whimpered and tried not to flinch, desperate and panicked, not even a drop of whiskey to dull the feeling of Doc lacing him up with crude hurried stitches. Yeah, you wanna talk about life experiences that taught a guy some grit, helped him _stay_ clean even when the other guys got their hands on some dope off the locals?

Knowing he was strong enough, that even without the drugs roaring through his blood he could fight down the pain, beat back the ghosts, keep on marching. Whether he’d admit it or not, something about the jungle and the war had fundamentally changed him. He wasn’t the same as the drugged up 29 year old _kid_ who’d crash landed into that tent back then, scared and helpless and desperate to find the easiest way out of anything that hurt, that wasn’t _bliss_ , like he could just pass through his whole life like that.

Klaus bit off a chuckle through his teeth as he started to feel the pain ease back to a dull throb. Ben had been right, after all. _Life was hard_. Dear old dad’d probably be so disappointed, what, 30 years old, and it took the _Vietnam War, twice,_ to get you to finally grow up?

He could never have done it if it hadn’t been for Dave. Dave, beautiful, vulnerable, sweet Dave with his rough farm-boy hands and gorgeous smile. All the pain in the world, every soul he’d killed just to haunt him, was worth it just to have had him. That kind of feeling, all consuming brutal devotion, _love_ , made every high known to man pale in comparison.

Slowly, it all started to come back, short flashes of hazy memory. Dave’s face covered in dirt and stained clear with tear tracks above him, begging words Klaus couldn’t remember, the tent back at camp, agony, then blissful emptiness, Dave’s calloused hands on his face and his shoulders, shaking and gentle. The feeling of being held, close and tight, and the sound of Dave’s heartbeat under his ear, thundering in his chest so fast and hard as Dave carried him…the briefcase, and the lights…for some reason he had an image of Five there too, smug and proud, looked over at him, but there wasn’t any context…nothing to connect the dots but the ceiling about him. 

He was back in the future, at the Academy.

Klaus wanted to cry with relief, but in the next breath it felt like his heart couldn’t even flex around the vice in his chest.

 _Dave_. If he was here in the future, oh god, no, please, Klaus thought, before his panicked flinch jostled the warm, heavy weight on his shoulder, and he shifted to look.

Dave’s head was resting there against him, his handsome face bruised under the eyes with exhaustion, but the lines of stress smooth and lax. He was sacked out asleep, really _asleep_ in the way they had never been able to sleep in Vietnam. Sleeping with the comforting assurance of _safety_ hadn’t been something he’d known could be missed, until every night was 30 minute exhausted naps holding a gun, flinching awake at every sound in the dark.

Relief flooded him like a tidal wave, and this time he did feel the tears start to well up in his eyes, lump up in the back of his throat. Maybe that spiteful bitch on her bicycle wasn’t so bad, after all.

He could feel the warm press of Dave’s body all along his side, and he just let his heart rate wind back down for a minute, savoring the sound of Dave’s soft little muffled snores against his neck. The scratchy rub of Dave's whiskers against the skin of his shoulder.

Klaus was pulled out of his reverie by a sound to his right, and when he looked over, he saw Pogo’s familiar face, wrinkled and smiling gently at him. _Nice to see he’s not always disappointed to see me_ , Klaus thought, holding back a snort.

Pogo came up to his bed side, patting him on his Dave-less shoulder gently. “Ah, Master Klaus. It is very good to see you awake, my boy. You gave us all quite the fright last night.”

Klaus smiled. “Good to see you too, Pogo. It’s been a long time.”

Pogo shook his head, and seemed a little concerned at that, but he offered back a wry smile. “Yes. Well, for me, it was just yesterday I saw you, sleeping on the living room sofa, rather erhmm, undressed for proper company. You must have experienced quite the adventure in between then and now, it seems.”

Klaus chuckled, a little bitter, but nodded. “Almost two years. Good times.”

Pogo cocked an aged eyebrow at that, eyeing Klaus critically. “Something tells me, dear boy, that you are not nearly the same person as I lectured just a scant day ago about petty thievery and drug use.”

“Yeah.” Klaus said simply, not wanting to explain. The weight of two years of war wasn’t something cleanly said, but the sad knowing in Pogo’s eyes told him he didn’t have to.

Pogo squeezed his shoulder again, and brightened to see Grace in the doorway. “Ah, Grace, come in, I was just getting ready to take a look at how our patient is doing.”

Grace smiled cheerfully, the sound of her heels crisp and chipper against the hardwood floor as always. Klaus had always wondered if the old man had some kind of fucked up kink making their _mom_ out of an android look like a shiny-paper vintage ad, too perfect and happy with drudgery to be a real woman. Subservient, self-sacrificing to a T. Klaus smiled at his Mom, happy to see her.

“Good morning, Klaus darling. Let’s get this bed up a bit so you can sit up, alright?” Grace said sweetly. “How are you feeling?”

She fiddled with the controls, and the bed started to tilt up at a steeper angle so that Klaus was sitting, and he felt Dave stir but he didn’t wake. Just as well, let him sleep, poor man’d carried Klaus’ sorry ass all the way from the front lines and into the damn _future_ , he had to be exhausted.

Klaus tried to readjust himself a little, and the movement jostled his leg under the covers. He winced, but shook it off. “Not too bad, Mom, been better, been worse.”

That seemed to spike Pogo’s concern, and the old monkey looked up from his tray of fresh bandages. “From a 1 to a 10, Master Klaus, how would you rate the amount of pain you’re feeling?”

Klaus intentionally tried to actually move his leg now, which in hindsight was pretty dumb, but instead of the earlier shooting agony that had left him breathless, his thigh just ached, dull and painful but barable. He was so weak he could barely twitch his ankle, or lift his knee, but it wasn’t as bad. They must have him on the heavy shit, Klaus thought, remembering how bad it had felt the first time, how his bone had practically shattered out from under him in that trench.

“I’d say 3? Maybe a 4.” Klaus said.

Pogo now seemed to be very alarmed, and Grace’s hands stilled where she’d been smoothing the covers, careful not to jostle Dave.

“So low?” Pogo asked. Klaus’ face pinched in confusion.

“Isn’t that good? I mean, you guys probably have me pumped so full of morphine I could swim in it.”

Pogo if possible, looked faint. “Master Klaus…I’m not sure how to tell you this, but we lowered your morphine dose hours ago, in the hopes that you would be able to wake naturally and we could check on you. Based on the dosage…you should not be very comfortable at the moment.”

Klaus paled, glancing at the IV bag hanging on the pole by his bed in confusion. The clear bag, mostly empty, read _Glucose solution, 1cc morphine_.

Shit that shouldn’t have even been enough to cut the edge, let alone leave him feeling alive and decent. What the hell?

Klaus shifted nervously, and tried to joke, “I mean, I’m not _that_ comfortable, it definitely aches and I can feel something really itchy, now that you mention it.”

Pogo coughed, and gestured for Grace to remove the covers from his waist. Pogo selected a pair of round-nosed bandage scissors from the tray beside him and immediately began to trim away the thick swath of heavy bandages encasing Klaus’ thigh.

“Hey, jeez, Pogo, stop, what’re you doing? I don’t wanna see that, come on.” Klaus whined. There wasn’t really a good way to prepare yourself for what an anti-material 12.7mm round colliding with human flesh looked like, but whatever he’d imagined couldn’t have prepared him for the jagged lines of neat, crisp stitches that seemed to be…holding otherwise undamaged skin together, half of them puckering loose and coming undone, nothing left for them to hold onto.

Deep raised pink scars underneath them looked weeks, months old, even, spread out from the center of where the bullet had hit him only _days_ ago. He could see how the muscle was a little distorted, the scars digging in, in places where the damage had been severe, but for all the dried blood in the bandages, he couldn’t find a single place where the skin hadn’t healed closed under the stitches.

“Uhm….Pogo?” Klaus asked weakly, eyes wide, and he looked up to see the butler staring at his leg in unconcealed amazement.

“Absolutely incredible. Oh, how Master Reginald would have been thrilled to see his work come so to fruition. Grace, would you retrieve the X-ray machine?” Pogo was practically ranting, showing more emotion than was usually even in his bandwidth, and Klaus was just trying to figure out what the fuck was happening and why _no one was telling him_.

“Pogo…Pogo.” Klaus said again, trying to get his attention, getting more and more unsettled.

“Jesus Christ, Pogo! What the hell is going on!” Klaus shouted, startling the ape out of his fluttering.

Pogo adjusted his glasses, eyes bright with excitement. “Master Hargreeves, towards the end of his life, devoted much of his time to researching and developing what he considered…the key to _everything_. A serum, if you will, that could unlock a…talented individual such as you and your sibling’s abilities, on a completely new level. Luther’s accident resulted unfortunately in Master Hargreeves being forced to test his prototype of this serum, far before it was ready. It was in guilt, and out of duty, that he continued his work until the end of his days. I never knew he finished it…”

Klaus was trying not to outright scream in panic, because the only part of what Pogo had just said he’d seemed to be able to digest was that he’d somehow been doped with one some kind of hack-job mutant juice _Dad_ had invented, which had ended with Luther looking like a Planet of the Apes reject and living on the fucking _Moon_.

“Pogo.” He hissed, desperate and tight, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the last time I trusted Dad or any of his ideas, he locked me in a mausoleum for an entire night and I was _10_. And no offense, but I’m going to lose my ever loving _shit_ if I start getting nasty and hairy, I swear to God, I will bring Dad’s ghost back down here and figure out a way to make him corporeal enough to choke the life out of him, _again_.”

Pogo gasped, scandalized, and glared at Klaus. Klaus glared right back, the two of them at a furious standstill for a moment, until Grace came back in, wheeling the X-ray machine, sunny smile still on her face.

Pogo’s voice was deep and harsh, nearly growling,“Those side effects were corrected in Master Hargreeves work long ago, _Master Klaus_ , so if you’re quite done being hysterical over a little _body hair_ I’d like to remind you that even if such a thing were to happen to you, you should be grateful to be alive. And if you are too vain to be grateful that we have saved your life at whatever the cost may be, you at least should know that I’m sure your soldier, there at your side, _would be_.”

The thought, combined with the feeling of Dave’s warmth still heavy alongside him, choked off the panic quickly enough. He winced, and met Pogo’s angry eyes in apology.

“You’re right…damnit. I just…there’s almost nothing more terrifying than imagining what Dad would have done to me, to all of us, given the chance to have his way and _improve us_ , Pogo. He already tortured us, pitted us against each other and the world our whole damn lives, and that wasn’t _enough_ for the old bastard was it?”

Pogo forcefully sighed, shaking his head. “I will never expect you or any of your siblings to understand it, but in his own way, he did love you. He knew, somehow, that the world would need you to save it, and he wanted more than anything to prepare you for that truly monumental task. His methods were flawed, Master Klaus. I will not deny that, but I would ask you to try and not…hold it against him with too much vengeance. What happened to Luther…came near to breaking his heart, if you would believe it. He could scarcely bare the sight of him, of what he’d done to his _son_. Not because of what that failure represented for his work, or for the future, but for the fate he had consigned Luther to, with his arrogance. It tortured him until the end of his days.”

Klaus closed his eyes, not wanting to feel the raw pain in Pogo’s voice, not wanting to feel an ounce of empathy for the old man who’d made his life such a living hell for 16 years. Damn you, _Dad_.

He swallowed, and opened his eyes again. “So. What now?”

Pogo nodded curtly, in faint approval. “Grace will help me take an x-ray of your wound, so that perhaps we can see how far this…rapid regeneration has gone.”

Grace quickly craned the arm of the machine over Klaus’ leg from the foot of the bed. She smiled at him, and said “Hold still, dear.”

There was a quiet pulse, and then she wheeled it back again. “I’ll go get this developed. Just a moment, Darling.” She said, extracting the black plate out of the machine and walking off again, heels echoing down the hallway.

Pogo pulled up an overhead light, along with a pair of tweezers and delicate scissors, and he tentatively patted Klaus’ hip. “I’m afraid those stitches will have to come out now, Klaus. Based on the level of healing, it should be relatively painless, but please let me know if it hurts.”

Klaus nodded, and very deliberately forced his head in Dave’s direction so as not to have to watch. Pogo’s hands were raspy and dry, but steady, and the stitches felt…ticklish and nasty, more than they hurt.

God, what a _head fuck_ this day was turning into.

Dave started to stir at his side, grumbling sleepily under his breath, and Klaus couldn’t help but smile watching Dave’s warm honey-brown eyes open under his eyelashes, fluttering before he winced at the light. Klaus lifted his shoulder a bit, to nudge him, and Dave grumbled more, closing his eyes and deliberately nuzzling back down against Klaus’s shoulder trying to go back to sleep. Klaus almost just let him, but the feeling of Pogo’s work and the nerves still running wild in his body had him too jumpy to be a steady pillow.

This time when Dave stirred, he came awake almost brutally fast, zero to a hundred, and Klaus winced in guilt when he saw Dave’s hand shoot out at his side, grasping for the rifle that wasn’t there in instinctive panic.

“Hey, Dave. Dave, hey, look at me!” Klaus said softly, and Dave whipped around to look at Klaus, his face so close Klaus could smell his morning breath, and he smiled, chuckling, when Dave’s nose wrinkled a bit at the smell of Klaus's. He couldn’t help but lean a little closer, pressing his lips in a dry kiss to Dave’s forehead before resting his cheek there, Dave’s overgrown curls tickling his nose.

He felt Dave curl into him and squeeze, desperate for a long moment before they relaxed into each other. “Hey, Lucky,” Dave murmured. His voice sounded rough with sleep, and a kind of tired that would take more than a night to fix, but it was _real_ and Klaus had never heard a prettier sound.

“Hey yourself.” Klaus teased. He brought his free hand up and around with a wince, muscles stiff with disuse, to drape around Dave’s shoulder, and Dave turned to face him, rolling onto his side.

Dave smiled. “Thank god you’re okay, babe.” he whispered. “God, I was so worried…thought I’d lost you.”

Klaus squeezed him tighter, trying to reassure him that he was very much alive, just as much as he was trying to reassure himself that _Dave_ was. “Me too.” He replied.

Dave’s face creased in confusion, after Klaus’ words sank in, and he pulled away enough to meet Klaus’ eyes. “What do you mean?”

Klaus exhaled, feeling shaky in a way that had nothing to do with the unsettling feeling of Pogo’s work, who was gratefully ignoring them.

“You know how, we’re in the future?” Klaus whispered.

Dave nodded. “Your brothers and sisters told me…but?”

“When I went back in time, and I found you? It wasn’t the first time.” Klaus said. And he clenched his arm around Dave, holding him tighter. “The first time I found you, things were different…we found each other, same as how you remember, but I wasn’t _Lucky_ , the first time…because I didn’t _know_ what would happen. That night in the valley, it wasn’t me who got hit with that round, Dave.”

Klaus heard Pogo sigh, and quietly set down his tools, softly shuffling out, and was grateful for the privacy. This was a thing too much at the core of him for anyone but Dave, for the love his life.

Dave stilled beside him, pale and achingly afraid. “You mean…oh, god, Lucky.” He swore, jolting forward to hold Klaus just as tight, burying his face in Klaus’ neck. Klaus swallowed around the lump in his throat at the memories. Dave’s voice was small and broken. “I died didn’t I?”

Klaus couldn’t speak, as Dave pulled away to meet his eyes, empathy heavy and wet looking back at him. The grief between them something shared now, and horrible. He knew to an aching fault the pain Klaus must have felt, because he’d had to feel it himself, if only for a moment.

“Yeah. That round that hit me caught you in the chest instead, I didn’t even realize until you weren’t moving.” Klaus knew he was crying, now, vision going watery, and he felt Dave’s hand press against his cheek, warm and rough and familiar.

He choked out, unable to stop the words now that he’d started, “You bled out in my arms. Nothing anybody could have done....Gunny found me, still holding onto your body and pulled me away from you, when all I wanted to do was eat a bullet of my own and lay down right next to you forever. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have never made it back….never realized I still had that damn briefcase I’d shoved to the back of our tent because I never wanted to leave.”

Dave’s tears were thick in his own voice, “You went back for me.”

Klaus nodded. “I wasn’t sure I could save you but I had to try. You swore to me we’d leave that place together, and I swore I’d never leave you and I wasn’t going to….I would have fought that war every year I had left, to get to have you again.”

“Oh, Klaus.” Dave whispered, and pulled him close, pressing his lips to Klaus’ desperate, lips closed and Klaus kissed back.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for all the love and comments, as always. I read every one of them! Also, for those who asked about the mysterious Serum, old Reggie's meddling, and Ben, I promise, all will be revealed! 
> 
> much love, your friendly neighborhood dinosaur 🦕

Klaus was still a little unsteady but coming back down by the time Grace returned. Dave was a solid, warm comfort around him and the unsettled feeling was starting to fade. Dave, he could tell, was already starting to get sleepy again, yawning against his shoulder.

Grace appeared in the doorway, angelic and darling as always, carrying a wide tray piled high with enough bacon and eggs and _waffles_ to feed ten people.

Klaus wanted to cry all over again. “Oh, Mom, you _angel_.”

That made her smile, _really_ smile. Funny how Klaus could tell the difference, but over their childhood he’d learned to see the nuances in the seemingly permanently sunny android's disposition.

“I thought the two of you must be hungry, and I remembered how much you loved waffles as a boy, Klaus darling, so I made your favorite.” She replied, setting the tray at the foot of the bed for a moment, before propping up a side table and bringing it up within arms reach, moving the food to it.

She seemed to make a little aborted gesture, then, almost nervous, like she wanted to reach out and touch him, but stopped herself. Klaus shook his head, and grabbed her hand, squeezing it and cavalierly leaned forward to give the top of her hand a kiss. “Thanks, Mom. I’m alright, now, ya know? It’s gonna be okay.”

Grace smiled warmly at him at that, unable to blush, but she reached out this time and ruffled his hair. “You always were such a sweet boy, Klaus.”

Dave snorted from back behind him on the bed. Apparently he’d given up his ruse of still sleeping for the bribe of breakfast. “Klaus? Sweet? Ma’am, is this your _son, Klaus_ we’re talking about?” He teased as he sat up.

Klaus spun around, clutching dramatically at his imaginary pearls. “ _Darling_!” He exclaimed, scandalized.

Dave out and out laughed at that, nuzzling up to give him a kiss on the cheek before he turned his attention back to breakfast. Where it rightfully belonged, Klaus thought, chuckling. God he’d missed Mom’s breakfasts. Every hangover and withdrawal he'd had, shakey and nauseous, the heady vanilla and cream of Mom’s waffles had been the only siren song that made him miss home. It had made every greasy spoon diner pale by comparison.

Klaus was inordinately pleased to see Dave’s look of hungry awe at his Mom’s breakfast spread.

Dave cleared his throat and called after Grace as she turned to leave. “Thank you, ma’am. Can’t think of the last time me and Lucky got a hot breakfast, and this all looks wonderful.”

Grace’s usual megawatt smile got cranked up to beaming at that, radiant and effervescently pleased. “Oh, dear boy, it’s no trouble. You’re a part of the family, now. Can’t have you starving on my watch.”

Dave bit his lip, grateful and suddenly looked a little teary-eyed as she walked away. Klaus’ attention was pulled away from his imminent _ravaging_ of that stack of warm waffles by the sound of it, Dave’s soft inhale and echoing shuddery sigh, a tear down his cheek. “Not that I’m saying my Mom’s waffles aren’t worthy of tears of joy, but are you alright?” Klaus teased gently.

Dave smiled back, and scrubbed at his eyes quickly. “It’s just…wow, jeez I’ve been crying enough these days you’d think I was a pregnant lady or something.” Klaus laughed.

He reached out to touch Dave’s face and wiped at the stray tear that followed. “Hey, no shame here,” Klaus reassured him.

Dave sniffed in, clearing his head and visibly trying to shake off the feeling. “Yeah. It’s just…it’s a lot. I wasn’t even family to my _own_ damn family, and your mom’s just gonna stand there and tell me I’m part of _yours_ when she doesn’t even know me. God.”

Klaus sighed. “Oh, Dave.” He reached out and pulled him close in a reassuring hug.

Dave sniffled again, but seemed to pull himself together. “It means a lot, you know?”

Klaus gave him a quick kiss on the nose as he pulled back, before he poked him in the side, teasing. “Yeah. I know. Welcome to the family. Dunno if I’m a good enough gauge for you, but you’re on the crazy ship now, honey-pie. We’re all mad here, ha!”

Dave chuckled, and chased after him for another kiss. “Yeah? Well I guess that’s alright. Cause I’m _madly_ in love with you, after all.”

Klaus shrieked suddenly in laughter, before descending into a fit of giggles, snorting and hiccuping. “Oh my fucking god, Dave, you adorable _cheeseball_.” He choked out around his laughter.

Dave was chuckling too, blushing bright red. “Can we eat now or what?” He said.

Klaus struggled to pack back down his giggle fit, but he nodded. “Yeah, go nuts. Hand me a waffle, I can’t even _breathe_ , god, hahaha.”

Dave grabbed the first plate of waffles, still gently giving off a hint of steam, and handed them to Klaus.

The plate of what had to be nearly a _pound_ of bacon and eggs was beckoning. He picked up a piece of beautifully browned toast, shiny with butter, and forked a sunny side up egg and a few pieces of bacon onto it.

The first bite made him groan, heady and satisfied. God he had missed real  _food_ , Dave thought as he tucked into it eagerly. MRE's could go fuck themselves.

Klaus was holding a waffle in his hand, tearing off bites and eating them plain, eyes closed in happiness.

Klaus swallowed and sighed, and the words slipped out on auto pilot before he could even stop to think about it. “God _damn_ , Mom’s waffles are good, huh, Ben?” Ben had always loved Mom's waffles. 

The voice that answered sounded a little sad, quiet. “Yeah, I remember. I missed them a lot, too.”

Klaus practically choked on the waffle in his mouth at the sight of Ben standing there at the foot of the bed, same as the day he’d left the present. Ben’s eyes were wet and his smile was shaky. “Oh my god, Ben!! You're back!!” Klaus cried.

Ben came around, closer, and tried to smile. “Hey bro.”

Klaus instinctively reached out to hug his brother, and was stunned when his hand didn’t fall through his ghost, like always. The two of them stared at his hand in shock, and Klaus gasped. “Ben? Benny, oh god, I missed you _so much_!” Klaus cried, and tugged at him pulling him close, smashing his face into Ben’s soft stomach and squeezing him as tight as he could.

He felt Ben’s hands squeeze him back. “I was worried about you.” Ben said.

“When I couldn’t find you…Klaus, I was really worried. That only happens when you OD on something _bad_ and I didn’t know if you were okay because it felt like you were gone and you _weren’t coming back_ and I didn’t see you, and I thought— I thought what if you were dead but you went to heaven and I was stuck here forever without you.” Ben’s voice was so shaky, rambling fast and nearly stammering like he used to sometimes when they were kids, talking so fast he would sound like he might pass out. 

Klaus pulled back and offered him a watery, reassuring smile. “Me, _heaven_? Please. God kicked me out herself. I was in the past…kinda hard to explain. I haven’t seen you in 2 years, Ben.”

Ben looked sad, still, but relieved, and he stepped back, trying to regain his composure. “Wow…well I guess that explains why I couldn’t find you. Where’d you go? Or I guess, when?”

Klaus chuckled. “1968. I fought in the Vietnam War, with this big lug. Fell in _madly in love_ with him, and all that. Ben, meet Dave.”

He jerked a thumb in Dave’s direction, and Dave glanced over, looking past Klaus in good natured friendliness, mouth still full of toast and eggs. Dave blushed in embarrassment at the rib over his pun, and at being caught with his mouth full, but he chewed and swallowed it down quickly. He waved at Ben, smiling, and said “Hi. You’re another one of Klaus’ brothers? Good to meet you.”

Ben and Klaus’s mouth’s dropped open in shock, and Dave watched in confusion as they looked at each other stunned and amazed.

He coughed awkwardly, feeling on the spot. “Do I have egg on my face or something?” Dave asked.

Ben looked pale, and he pointed at himself, “Wait, you can see me?”

Dave felt even more confused now. “Of course, I mean you’re standing right there. Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

Klaus stirred, and seemed nervous when he caught Dave’s eyes. “That’s because…Ben’s dead, babe.”

Dave scowled. “Bullshit, you just hugged him, and like I said, _I can see him standing right there_ , Lucky, quit fucking with me.”

Klaus giggled, high and nervous. “Well so, uh. You know how I said this family’s…pretty crazy?”

Dave nodded, brow scrunched up in confusion.

“My dear old _dad_ wasn’t some philanthropist, running around adopting kids to satisfy his do-gooder jones.” Klaus said, “Me and my siblings? We’re freaks…super-humans, magical people, I dunno, pick a flavor. We have these weird abilities that aren’t _normal_ , and yeah we have no idea _how or why_ , but the old man trained us to be superheroes.”

Dave was looking unsettled, disbelief warring with confusion. “So you’re saying…you have superpowers? What, like _Superman_?”

Ben snorted. “Right idea, wrong genre, but sure. Klaus can see dead people. Ghosts, if you will. And after I died, well, there you go. Doesn’t explain how _you_ can see me, though.”

Klaus looked so nervous he was practically shaking, carefully staring at the half-eaten waffle still in his hand.

Dave just took a long second to take a deep breath in, and back out. “Alright. Lucky can see dead people. Wow, okay, yeah, you know that actually makes sense.”

Klaus startled, and looked at Dave. “Wait, what, you _believe_ me?”

Dave just shrugged. “You always used to look at the dark, back in the jungle, like there was something haunting you…never could figure out what it was but I knew it was real, because I knew you were clean, and it scared you. People don't _watch_ shit move around in the shadows like you did.”

“No one ever believes me,” Klaus said quietly.

Dave smiled, and turned back to his breakfast. “Look, Luck, I hate to break it to you, but you were dying in my arms 24 hours ago, loopy on morphine, and I believed your delirious ass rambling about a magical _briefcase_ that would take us to the future. I believed you enough to open it when I was sure it was gonna be full of like, cocaine and underwear, because I _trust_  you.”

Ben coughed, hiding his amusement, but Dave wasn’t done, getting spun up, passionate enough to start moving his hands while he talked which Klaus had always found seriously adorable.

“The future, which by the way, contains a _talking monkey_ in a fucking wool _suit_ performed surgery on you, and your _Mom_  who Diego said is apparently a _robot,_ and one of your brothers _teleported_ into the room and saved your life with a syringe of glowing liquid that _healed your broken leg overnight_ , okay? Give me a little credit here. Honestly, you being able to see ghosts is about par for the course of the past day. And Ben, what, turns into a creature from the Black Lagoon? Diego’s secretly a mole person? Allison’s got x-ray vision? Luther's from the moon? Hit me.”

Dave concluded his rant by turning back to his bacon and eggs, digging back in with vigor. 

Klaus snickered, shaking his head in amazement, and fell into giggles. "You're not exactly wrong."

Ben smiled, pleased. “He seems to be taking all this rather well.”

Klaus shrugged, “Wait till he finds out about the internet.”

Dave grunted in agreement. “Your sister said the same thing.”

Klaus smiled, giving Dave an approving peck on the temple, ruffling his hair fondly, and turning back to his waffle. “It’s great. Loads of cat memes."

Dave had a weird look on his face, confused, and Klaus chuckled when he heard him whisper the words "the devil is a fucking  _cat meem_ ," under his breath. 

Klaus gestured to the pile of remaining waffles. "Ben, waffle?”

Ben shook his head. “You’re a moron, Klaus.”

Klaus reeled back, falsely offended. “What, I figured I’d ask. You’re corporeal, waffles are great, geez, fine. More for me.”

…

By the time Pogo made his way back to the medical ward with a large folder in his hand, he nearly had a heart attack at the sight of Ben’s ghost, which Klaus seemed to think was hysterical, but Ben not so much, particularly when Pogo discreetly took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes.

“Young Master Ben. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, dear boy. At least, not in this life…Master Klaus, your abilities are evolving impressively.”

Klaus shrugged, picking at his third waffle. Dave had finally hit a wall around plate three, or maybe it was four, and when Grace had come by with coffee, Klaus could’ve sworn he’d seen the pedestal being erected in Dave’s mind, placing Grace among the angels and the stars forever. That flushed look of adorable adoration was a good look on him. 

Klaus had teased him, patting Dave’s lean belly, that he was gonna get fat at this rate. Dave had coughed, embarrassed, until Klaus had leaned over to nip at his ear, and whispered that a little extra padding would make him easier to hold on to, _if you know what I mean_. Dave’s face had turned bright red in an instant, scandalized, leaving Klaus smug as hell.

Pogo cleared his throat. “I’m afraid we can’t predict _how_  your abilities will continue to change, Master Klaus, but they already have significantly, in more ways than one,” he said, moving up to the wall where the light box was rigged. “Let me show you.”

The first X-ray was of a leg, which to Klaus’s untrained eye looked…basically normal. There were small, thin looking cracks creeping along the length, spread out like a spider web, but the bone as a whole seemed to be in one piece.

“Is that…?” Dave asked.

Pogo nodded. “This, gentlemen, is the X-ray Grace took of Klaus' leg earlier this morning. And _this_ —” Pogo said with a flourish, bringing out the second frame to hang beside it.

“This was your leg when you first arrived.” Pogo said.

The femur on the x-ray was more splinters than it was whole, bone fragments fractured and spread everywhere around the bright white slug that had to be the bullet. Dave swallowed, and shivered. “God, Lucky, Doc would’ve had to take your leg for sure.” He muttered.

“Your field medic _should have,_ if he were properly trained, but I can imagine he wouldn’t have the real medical training to realize. His decision not to amputate would have been Klaus’ death sentence, had you remained in 1968, I’m afraid,” Pogo said firmly, almost angry, “When you brought him back to us, Grace and I knew that the shock of removing it _then_ would be too much, but we did what we could. It is fortunate we did not remove it, either. While the serum has done something rather miraculous, I am not at all confident it could have regrown a full limb.”

Klaus looked down at his leg under the sheet, and swallowed. “Yeah… Christ.”

Pogo’s face softened, trying for reassuring that might have worked if the weight of what he’d said this morning about _Dad_ hadn’t lain between them. Klaus wasn’t sure he’d ever trust the old butler again, knowing that even with the old bastard gone, the ape still remained so loyal.

Given the choice between losing his leg, and having Dad’s freaky serum rummaging around inside him, _improving him_ …he wasn’t really sure which was more horrifying.

The feeling of Ben’s hand on his shoulder, physical and firm, settled the debate.

“Now, Master Klaus, I’m not sure that you should be putting full weight on your leg for the time being, so I’ve had Grace fetch a brace for you to wear, which she's set up in your room. It may appear fully healed, but these cracks are still mending and I would hate for the bone to re-break, simply from undue stress. In the mean time, Dave, if you could help me, I believe Master Klaus should try and stand up now.”

Dave nodded, and hopped off the other side of the bed to come around to Klaus’s side, sock-covered feet making the floor creak gently under his weight. Dave gave Klaus and encouraging smile, and held out a hand. Klaus shifted, sitting all the way up with a grimace, muscles stiff with disuse even after barely a day, and tried to flex his injured leg experimentally.

None of the searing pain from before remained, but the muscles were locked up, beyond stiff, and protested the movement loudly.

He waved off Dave’s hands, determined to do this himself as he shove a hand under his knee and lifted, forcing the leg off the bed and over the side until it hung free and his foot touched the floor.

Klaus bit back a scream in pain, and he could feel the tension radiating off of Dave as he tried not to stop him. Good. He had to do this.

The pain flared back to a dull ache again, and the feeling of blood rushing back through veins and muscles firing that had been torn to shreds just last night was excruciating for the first few seconds, but as he breathed, steadying himself, it passed. Klaus flexed his other leg experimentally, pleased that it didn’t seem anything more than a little stiff, and he flung it over the bed as well to sit up on the edge. He was sweating, the sheet pooled at his waist feeling sticky against his bare skin, and he looked up at Dave, panting and feeling oddly triumphant.

Dave just looked worried, but Klaus winked at him. “Nothing to it.” He said, still out of breath.

Dave didn’t look convinced, but he tried to smile back. “How’s it feel?”

Klaus grunted, shifting forward a little more, easing more weight onto the unhurt leg. “Not as bad as you’d think. Help me up?”

Dave’s arm threaded under his in an instant, shoulder under his armpit, clutching Klaus’ ribcage. “Ready?”

Klaus nodded.

Getting to his feet suddenly after laying down so long sent a rush of vertigo so bright and swirling he almost went limp and passed out, but Dave’s strength under him kept him vertical as he nearly rag-dolled, long enough for the feeling to dissipate.

Pogo was watching, concerned and clinical. “Can you try and put your left foot on the ground, Master Klaus? I don’t want you to actually stand on it, just place a little pressure, alright?”

Klaus sucked in a breath, and determinedly put his foot down and stepped into it, firmly placing his weight on it. Pogo should’ve known better than to think Klaus would follow orders.

Dave cursed, stepping with him, “Jesus Christ, Lucky!”

Pogo’s shout of “Master Klaus!” was muffled over the sound of Klaus’s scream through his teeth, swearing and loud. Klaus’s jaw clenching and panting through his nose. The spike of agony in the leg took a while to coast down, this time, but eventually it was back to a dull throb, deep in the bone. Manageable. Fucking _fantastic_.

He turned to look at Dave, grinning like a maniac, and Dave was looking back, wide eyed. “You okay?”

“Never better, babe. Also, I’m feeling a lot of air on my…bits…right now. So if someone could shield Ben’s virgin eyes.”

Ben snickered, and Klaus felt his hand stingingly bite into the back of his head with a smack. “You fucking idiot.” Ben snapped, fond.

“Fake news.” Klaus jeered back. He transferred the weight back to his good leg, and sagged into Dave. “Phew. Well. That’s good.”

Pogo glared. “If you are _quite_ done. Perhaps Dave could help you make yourself decent and help you to the bathroom. Grace and I didn’t have time to clean off much of the filth, save for what would have risked introducing more infection to the wound, and the rest of you is still quite…ripe.”

Klaus snickered, but he could believe it. His skin felt all kinds of greasy and gritty, come to think of it.

“You trying to tell me I _stink_ , Pogo?” Klaus gasped, sounding scandalized.

Pogo glared back primly, unamused. “Need I remind you that my nose is far more…sensitive…than a humans?”

Klaus scoffed, affecting a dramatically offended look. “Rude!”

“Many people would consider it more rude to _be_ the person with such an unwashed hide, Master Klaus. Although I will say, it is an improvement for you not to reek of your usual _eau du parfum_ of cigarettes, marijuana, vomit, piss and _dumpster_.” Pogo downright snapped, moving to tidy up the tray of dirty dishes with Victorian disdain.

Klaus gasped again, looking at Dave. “Dave! Did you hear what the mean butler just said to me? I am so _hurt_ , Pogo.”

Pogo snorted. “As you and the ‘kids these days’ say, Master Klaus, _fake news._ Dave, if you would, there’s a service elevator down this hallway, that will take you up the the second floor. The bathroom should be just there on the right.”

Dave’s chuckle was warm and humid against Klaus’s ear, smelling of coffee and bacon, and Klaus snorted. “What, you’re not going to avenge my honor, darling?” Klaus teased.

“I remember Saigon, Lucky. That first liberty we got, after you got in country? Remember how that night ended?” Dave replied, shifting down to grab at the sheet and winding it around Klaus’s waist in a makeshift toga.

Klaus’s face was stained faintly with a rare blush. Ben perked up, curious spiteful glee on his face. “Oh?”

“It _started_ with us drinking at a nasty bar off the red light district, with all the other guys in our unit, and I walk out of the head to find Klaus, who at this point I’d barely even gotten to _know_ , calling me over to a booth where he’s got a couple of lines of coke splayed out on a Viet hooker’s —” Dave starts, grinning, only for Klaus to blush darker, and reach up to clap an hand over Dave’s mouth.

“Oooookay that’s enough of that.” Klaus hisses, but it’s way too late, Dave’s eyes meeting Ben’s in shared amusement.

“Yeah alright.” Dave agrees. “What say we get you upstairs and cleaned up, huh, Lucky?”

Klaus sighed in relief. “Thank you, god, yes, please, let’s. Jesus I’m pretty sure there’s latrine muck in my hair and who knows which kind of bodily fluids all up in my business.”

Dave gave him a fond kiss to the side of his neck. "You got it, babe." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I going to be able to get through a single chapter without these boys crying, oh my god, hahaha. 
> 
> It's gonna be a little less angst, more fluff, more smut and more plot from here, kids! I have a lot of fun ideas planned! (⊙ꇴ⊙) stay tuned, kids!
> 
> love, your friendly neighborhood dinosaur 🦕


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of your guys' comments were so fucking sweet, omg, I practically cried. I've got cavities, I'm dying, y'all are the best. And so without much ado, here's the next chapter. Note the updated tags for this chapter and the future, kids, enjoy! haha. 👌🏻🖤✨
> 
> love, your friendly neighborhood dinosaur 🦕

It was slow going as Dave helped him hobble into the bathroom down the hall from his old bedroom, but Klaus felt relatively steady limping along. The leg still ached some, sharp then fading each step when he put weight on it, but he could actually stand by himself with weight on it by the time Dave asked if he could, so that he could grab some towels and draw the bath.

Klaus sat down on the toilet with a sigh, sheet still wadded up around his waist. He felt more than a little winded, after their trek, and so he just sat back and tried to catch his breath. The sight of Dave puttering around in the linen cabinet and under the sink, back and forth to gather the towels and soap with the kind of absentminded curiosity of a man who clearly had no idea where _any_ of it was but wanted to be busy with finding it…was pretty cute.

So was his curse when the water came out a little rusty, and ice cold, like always.

Dave had vehemently insisted he sit there and rest, refused any help from Klaus, so Klaus just let him figure it out.

“Alright, that’s warm, now.” Dave said, pleased with himself, and Klaus felt like if any more fondness for that man filled him, it’d pour out his ears. Just that boy-scout charm on his face, eager and happy as a puppy, just wanting to take care of him.

“You gonna get in with me?” Klaus asked softly.

Dave looked up from testing the partially filled tub of bath water, surprised. “Oh, nah, it’s alright, I just had a bath yesterday…your sister, uh, helped me.” His face was a little flushed at that, and Klaus snorted, but leveraged himself back up to sit forward and reach from him.

“Oh yeah? Come on, take your clothes off. Not that it isn’t super vindicating to see you _filling the fuck_ out of one of Luther’s old t-shirts with those muscles, babe, but you’ve got jungle leftovers all over you just from being next to me.”

Dave’s blush deepened, red and prickling along the bridge of his nose and cheeks, as he very determinedly kept staring at the tiles underneath Klaus’ feet. “I-it’s fine, seriously, I’m still cleaner than I’ve been in months. I can just take a shower when you’re done.”

Klaus very briefly toyed with the idea of being offended that his boy didn’t want to take a bath with him, but the nerves in Dave’s face under that flush, his poor lip getting gnawed on the way he did when he was anxious…Klaus knew Dave well enough after two lifetimes of war to know it wasn’t a lack of _interest_.

“Nuh-uh. Strip. What’ve you got to be nervous about, hm?” Klaus demanded, stubborn, and reached out to thread his fingers through Dave’s hair. Dave closed his eyes, sighing a little shaky, and looked up at Klaus.

“What if someone comes in?” He asked quietly.

Klaus scoffed, and forced himself to his feet. The head rush was brief but unpleasant, and he winced at it. His leg was still stiff but amazingly, felt even better than it had when they'd left downstairs. He tried not to think too much about why. “Pssh, _please_. It’s not like everyone in my family hasn’t already seen me naked or worse. That and it sounds like Allison already got an eyeful of you, huh, stud?”

Dave scowled, still embarrassed. “Yeah. Jesus, Lucky it’s just…it won’t bother them? I know Allison said the future’s okay with… _us_ , but its one thing for them to _know_ , and another for them to walk in on…I mean…”

That made Klaus hesitate, for once, and he sighed. Once he got the tap turned off, to keep the bath from over flowing, he turned around to Dave. Dave looked distressed, hands crossed and clenched, and his was scowling at the floor.

“Hey.” Klaus said, gentle. “Dave, baby, look at me.”

Dave looked up after a second, worrying at his lip. “I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid.” Dave muttered. 

Klaus limped forward a step to lean against him and pull him close. The big man’s frame sagged against him easily, and he felt more than heard Dave’s sigh against his neck.

“It’s not stupid.” Klaus whispered back. “Seriously, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. But I don’t want you to be scared. Okay? There's no reason to be scared anymore.”

Dave exhaled, and nodded against his neck.

Klaus pressed a quick peck to the side of his jaw, and pulled back to limp his way over to the bathroom door. There was an old pink shower scrubby still hanging on the back of the door, color worn and falling apart, and Klaus chuckled at the sight of it. The universal Hargreeves sibling Bathroom " _Me Time_ ” scrubby-on-the-doorknob.Hey, in a family full of pent up angsty teenage superheroes, how else did you get the tension out? The scrubby code had been enforced after Allison walked in on Klaus jerking off the same week Klaus had accidentally caught Luther, which just  _eww_ , and Five had cooly insisted that there was no room for shame in  _taking care of such business_ provided they could coexist  _civilly_. And then there'd been the scrubby.

It hadn't just been the boys who'd used it either, which had made teenage Klaus giggle like a maniac at Luther's star struck face when he'd first accidentally seen Allison, dressed in nothing but a towel and a satisfied smile,  _unhang_ said scrubby from the door. 

 _Ah, sweet memories_. 

Dave shifted behind him, and his voice was confused, “Klaus?”

Klaus just hummed, hanging the scrubby on the outside of the door, and pressing it closed. The slim brass latch below the glass crystal door knob bolted the door with an audible clack. He turned around slowly, and smiled at Dave as he let the loose sheet he’d been clutching around his waist fall to the floor in a pile.

“I believe I told you to _strip_ , _soldier_.” Klaus purred.

Dave’s face, which out of nerves had been paling out of its former blush, flushed adorably crimson in an instant. “ _Oh_.” Dave breathed.

Klaus’ grin was slow and cat-in-the-cream wide. “Yeah, _oh_.”

Dave made a quiet, gutted little animal noise, and started tugging off his shirt and socks in a hurry that was eager and fumbling. Klaus smirked, and limped back over a few steps closer.

Dave hesitated at the waist of his borrowed pajama pants for a moment, but seemed to muster the courage to shuck them off after that, taking his underwear with them.

He stood there naked, clearly embarrassed, but his eyes when he met Klaus’ were bright and eager, excitement and disbelief there in his warm brown eyes. Like _Dave_ was the lucky one to have _Klaus_ , like he couldn’t believe he’d done something to deserve it, and that wouldn’t do. Dave's skin was a patchwork of scuff marks, bruises and scars, jungle tan and tough in places, and soft, vulnerable pale in others, and Klaus just drank him in. They'd barely even ever had the chance to really do this, before, take each other in, in the daylight and calm, it had always been frantic and dark. 

“So, uh.” Dave said, unsure. 

Klaus smiled, and took the step closer to lean in and kiss him.

The first press of Dave’s lips to his was achingly familiar, both of their lips a bit chapped from the elements and neglect, but Dave melted under him, letting Klaus deepen the kiss with a little groan that Klaus chased down eagerly.

He tasted like bacon, syrup sweet and bitter brewed coffee, _home_ , and Klaus closed his eyes as he felt Dave’s hands find the sides of his face, his hair and the back of his neck, eager and desperate.

When they finally pulled apart, panting, Klaus felt like a teenager again, buzzing like a live-wire from just a kiss, and he’d always scoffed at the romance novels when he'd been that age, already no longer a virgin and heavy into the drugs and party scene. Kisses in those clubs and bathroom stalls with older boys and girls used to just be slimy and messy, an awkward sloppy prelude to the better things after, that younger Klaus had never understood. But _this...this was_...

Dave kissed him like a man drowning, like Klaus was his air and if he didn’t hold him he’d disappear. Like he was the most precious thing in the universe, and Klaus couldn't help but try and use his body to tell him back, just as desperate.

To think they’d almost never gotten the _chance_. Klaus had come to terms long ago that if he’d managed to survive the war with Dave, that they’d have found a way back in the States in the past, even if the world was against them. But to get to have Dave here in the present, where they wouldn’t have to hide anything, where he could teach Dave’s shaking, eager hands to never be _afraid_ of his love ever again.

There weren’t words.

Dave chased after his lips again, and Klaus chuckled softly, returning it and letting his own hands do a little wandering. He snuck one under Dave’s arm and around his ribs, pulled their naked bodies together, and teased the other down Dave's hip and to the small of his back.

Dave’s groan was bitten off and deep, and he ended the kiss, panting, eyes closed. Klaus nipped at his jaw, squeezing him close, and Dave’s cock was already hard between them, hot and throbbing against Klaus’ stomach. _Well that was flattering_ , Klaus thought, inordinately pleased.

He was most of the way there, himself, and he luxuriated in the feeling of arousal without the edgy nerves of fear. Not feeling like they had to watch their backs or keep an eye over their shoulders. No one to interrupt them, no sounds in the jungle to ruin the buzz of feeling Dave’s body against him, tight and warm.

Dave chuckled, breathless under his breath, and Klaus felt him shiver.

Klaus slipped his hand down the thick muscled swell of Dave’s ass and squeezed, using his grip to thrust lazily against Dave’s stomach, Dave’s cock caught between them. Dave whimpered, hips rolling in response, and Klaus felt beyond high, no drug could ever compare to the rush, the _power trip_ of having such a strong, beautiful man under his hands, turned on and mad for _him_. It could really go to a man's head. 

Dave panted, chest rising and falling in short little spasms, and he was shivery as a colt under Klaus’s hands as Klaus pulled back. “Fuck, Lucky.” Dave rasped.

Klaus grinned, and pinched his side gently, enjoying Dave’s ticklish flinch.

Dave grinned back, sheepish and practically giddy, and wasn’t _that just the cutest_. “You keep that up, Luck, you’re gonna get dirtier before you even get clean.”

Klaus smirked, leering at Dave. “Oh yeah? That doesn’t sound like a problem to me…”

Dave chuckled, and his eyes were impossibly fond. “I’d rather not be that quick. S’kinda embarrassing, at my age.”

Klaus just kissed him again, pushing him back against the wall harder, ignoring the dull protest of his leg for the rasp of Dave’s chest hair and the heat of his skin feeling amazing against Klaus.’

Dave’s startled groan deepened in to a cry as Klaus just wrapped his hand around Dave’s fat dick and squeezed. Poor guy was already leaking, messy against their bellies and hard enough to pound nails, and Klaus hid his gratified pleasure in continuing the kiss.

Dave was so turned on his hips bucked under the weight of Klaus’ leaner frame, not even finding a rhythm, blind and eager and desperate as he kissed back and tried to thrust into Klaus’s hand. Klaus nipped at his lip, and started working at sucking a hickey into the soft skin behind Dave’s ear, high on his neck right where it drove Dave _crazy._

He’d found that spot one night in their tent, hurried and fumbling in the dark, and he’d been ecstatic to discover just how much it’d turned Dave on. They hadn’t even gotten their clothes off, not that they usually did, and Dave had bitten off a shout around his own fist and came in his pants before Klaus had even started on the second love bite. Klaus had laughed like a maniac the next day when the guys asked Dave what the hell kind’a bug had bitten him, and Dave had turned bright red. In hindsight, they’d been way too obvious, but no one had ever called them on it.

But now they had all the time in the world, and there was nothing to stop Klaus from stroking him slow and hard, sweat slick between their bellies, as he gave Dave the biggest, nastiest, most glaringly lurid purple love bite he possibly could.

Dave’s head fell back against the wall, and he groaned, loud and unrestricted this time. Klaus felt Dave’s cock spasm in his hand, Dave’s hips jerking forward instinctively. Felt him spill all over Klaus’s hand, Dave’s whole body shuddering and trembling as he came.

Klaus relaxed his jaw, kissing messily at his bite-mark, and he chuckled as his felt Dave’s answering shiver.

“Christ.” Dave breathed, starting to come down after a few long moments.

Klaus’ dick gave him an answering throb of sympathy, but Klaus ignored it, giving Dave’s a gentle squeeze as he let go that made Dave moan that let him know it was right on the edge of too much in that perfect, nearly painful blissful way that Klaus loved on himself. Dave was a lot more sensitive than he was, especially after he’d already orgasmed, and Klaus _adored_ it.

Dave opened his eyes, meeting Klaus’ eyes, still breathing hard, and smiled. “Fucking _hell_ , Lucky.”

“Please, by all means, keep inflating my ego.” Klaus purred, teasing and stood back to survey his handiwork. Dave laughed, loose and comfortable, and chased after him to pull him close for another kiss. Klaus kissed back, smug, and laughed when Dave stopped and whispered in his ear “You little _shit_. What did I just tell you? I oughta tan your hide.”

Klaus cackled, grinning ear to ear, and he waggled his eyebrows at Dave. “You promise, _daddy_?”

Dave’s laugh was loud and startled, and Klaus chuckled, feeling Dave’s chest shake with laughter.

“Oh my _god_ , Klaus, _do not_.” Dave threatened, which didn’t really work considering he was laughing so hard it was even making his chest red.

Klaus took that as an open invitation to continue teasing him, and he turned away, hand on his hip as he leaned over the tub. He deliberately made come hither eyes over his shoulder, knowing Dave had a full eyeful of his pale, scrawny ass on display. “Oh, please, _daddy_ , spank me!” Klaus whined in a teasing falsetto, “I’ve been such a _bad boy_.”

Dave practically keeled over, laughing hard enough he was almost crying, and Klaus couldn't help it and started laughing too.

Had he _ever_ been this happy? What god had he pleased with a good deed in a past life, jeez. 

Dave started to try and pack his laughter back in, still red faced and out of breath, and Klaus felt his face hurt from smiling so hard.

“You are _ridiculous_ , Lucky.” Dave said, smiling just as hard and wiping at his eyes.

“You know it, babe.” Klaus drawled, and gave a startled shriek when Dave’s hand cracked across his ass cheek, hard enough to sting a little. He looked back at Dave, stunned and awestruck. His dick gave a twitch, and he felt it nudge his belly eagerly.

“Meee- _ow,_  Dave, _darling_ , I didn’t know you had that in you.” Klaus panted deliberately, fanning one hand across his face like he might faint.

Dave was blushing, but pleased, and his hand was slow but sure when he reached out and stroked across the flaming handprint he’d left on Klaus’s ass. The sting was  _glorious_. 

“God, would you _shut up_ , Lucky?” Dave swore, but Klaus saw how his jaw was hanging just a little too far open to be anything but arousal at the sight of Klaus under his hands.

Klaus moaned, a little harder than it naturally spilled out, as Dave groped, tender and exploring, and gasped again, genuinely, when Dave dug his hand into the tender flesh harder.

He felt breathless when Dave leaned over him, and kissed the back of his neck. Klaus’s dick was trying to make a puddle on the floor, throbbing angrily now, and now it was Dave’s turn to look smug. Klaus panted a little, and grinned at him. “I am so _proud_ , I think I’m gonna cry.” He teased.

Dave snorted, and pulled back, giving Klaus another quick smack. “You ever stop talking?”

“Well…Mom always said it was rude to talk with my mouth full.” Klaus said, jeering.

Dave practically choked, and Klaus side eyed his soft dick and saw give a valiant twitch at that against his thigh. “Oh _my. God._ Lucky, I cannot believe you.” 

Klaus snickered, and moved to stand back up. He winced when the muscles in his thigh screamed at him for the movement, and felt the knee nearly buckle out from under him but caught himself on the edge of the tub. “Ow, shit.” He hissed.

Dave’s humor disappeared in an instant and he rushed to Klaus’ side. “Jesus, I’m sorry, fuck I can’t believe I forgot about your leg.”

Klaus felt the pain fade and he shook his head. “Oh, shut up. It didn’t even hurt until now, so get that guilty look off your face, babe.”

Dave still looked a little like a kicked puppy when Klaus glanced up, but his smile returned when Klaus gave him a reassuring smile back.

“Now that that little trip down memory lane has _thoroughly_ killed Little Klaus’s dreams,” Klaus teased, glaring irritated at his softening dick, “Think you can help me with that bath now?”

Dave nodded, fond. “You got it, Lucky. I mean, I was the one you helped get you dirty, yeah?”

Klaus squawked, fake indignant, and gasped at Dave, “Oh, _Dave_ , ugh. Be still my heart! I’ve created a monster.”

Dave chuckled, and helped him climb into the tub. “Yeah, yeah, hush up.” He said.

Klaus sighed at the feeling of hot steaming water soaking into his skin and bones, sweet bliss after _months_ since he’d had more than a sponge bath out of a canteen or a leech infested river without so much as a rag and a bar of soap. Dave’s fond look of sympathy told him he’d felt the same, getting clean yesterday. War had a way of teaching you that the little things were all you needed.

That and the love a good man, and there was nothing little about that. 

Klaus didn’t have too long to soak in the water, before Dave stepped into the tub after him and clumsily rearranged them until he had his legs splayed wide enough for Klaus to lay between them and rest against his chest. Klaus smiled sleepily at the feeling, Dave’s pleased sigh at the water and Klaus in his arms, and the two of them sat there just soaking it in for a while.

Dave pressed a kiss to the side of Klaus’ head, nuzzling at his dirty hair. “I love you, Lucky.” He whispered.

Klaus snuggled back, and closed his eyes. “Love you too, Dave _.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More NSFW next chapter, then its down to business! I just keep picturing Five's angry cinnamon roll face as he passive aggressively taps his watch, like, bitch the world is ending, why are you writing sex scenes hahaha. 🖤🦕


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey kids! It's an update. Tags updated to reflect. Also, fair warning if it's not your thing, but head canon for me with these two will always be that both of them are switches. 🖤🦕

Dave took his time tracing over all of Klaus’s battle worn skin, gentle with the wash cloth and soap, and Klaus wanted to cry it felt so good to be clean again. They had to drain the tub and refill it more than once, between the two of them and the filth in the water from the first round, but by the time Klaus was starting to feel a little waterlogged and pruny, Dave had managed to get the two of them clean. He’d even washed Klaus’s totally-out of regs hair, which Dave loved teasing his hands through so much he’d basically had no choice but to grow it out.

He idly toyed with the idea of growing it out for real, long enough to tie back, and if the look on Dave’s face when he’d mentioned it was any indication, he was more than encouraging of the concept.

Who knows, it could be fun. He was already confusing enough for the average straight guy on the street, might as well continue the head fuck, right?

Dave pulled the plug on the tub, and gave Klaus a quick peck to the temple. “Time to get out, Lucky.”

Klaus grumbled sleepily, but Dave forced the issue, hauling him as he stood up. Klaus squawked indignantly, and shivered at the brush of air against wet skin away from the warmth of the bath water.

Dave stepped out of the tub, threw a towel over his own shoulder, and then helped Klaus out of the tub on his wobbly fawn legs and into a big fluffy towel. Klaus just stood there for a second holding it around himself like a blanket, shivering, and watched as Dave briskly toweled himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist.

“You okay, babe?” Dave asked. He fished out another towel for Klaus’s head, ruffling it through his hair like Klaus was a misbehaving puppy.

“M’cold.” Klaus mumbled, whining, “Stoooppp.”

Dave pressed a fond kiss to his forehead. “Let’s get you dry, and into some clean clothes. That’ll make you feel better, huh?”

Klaus shrugged under his towel, and whimpered loudly when Dave tugged the towel off him so that he could actually rub it across the rest of his goose-bump covered skin.

By the time he was done, Klaus felt more than on-board with the _clothes_ idea. Maybe he’d steal one of Allison’s really fluffy cashmere sweaters.

Dave wrapped Klaus’s towel around his slim hips, and nudged him forward out of the bathroom. There was a weird kinda nasty looking scrubby on the front door handle for some reason, but Dave just shrugged to himself.

Klaus’s room had a distinctlylived-in feeling to it, the drawings and posters on every wall just pure Klaus, manic and dreamy, highs and lows, and his bed was a mess of soft, worn looking flannel sheets and heavy piles of all different textures of blankets. Dave chuckled when Klaus just staggered forward towards it, tugged his towel off and burrowed under the pile, tugging the blankets over himself like he was trying to hibernate.

Dave raised an eyebrow at him when Klaus stuck his head of his self-made den of blankets. “You tired?”

Klaus grumbled something unintelligible, and Dave shook his head, smiling. “I could go for a nap.” He replied.

Klaus squeaked and flailed at him when Dave yanked open his blanket pile, letting in the cold air apparently, and after he dropped his own towel, he climbed in to join him. Klaus’ skin was shivery and a bit chilled, but not concerning. Dave chuckled when Klaus immediately latched onto him like an octopus, trying to press every part of his body against Dave’s warm skin like he could leech off his body heat. Klaus practically purred, shivering into Dave with a satisfied nuzzle.

“Okay?” Dave whispered in his ear. He helped adjust the blankets around them as even as he could managed, and sighed in contentment. The soft fuzz of the flannel was comforting against his skin, and he would’ve felt ridiculously self-indulgent sleeping naked like this, if it wasn’t for Klaus wrapped around him, already snoring. Dave smiled, happy to see the grey bruising of exhaustion under his lover’s eyes had lightened, and his soft wet little wheezing snores were beyond precious. Dave listened to the sound of it for a while, as he drifted off.

…

When Klaus woke up again, he was aware of two things. One, he really wasn’t ready to pry his eyes open and let the bliss of this nap be over, and two, his dick was really, _really_ enjoying being pressed up against Dave’s side. The feeling of Dave’s deep, still asleep breathing, caused his stomach to rise and fall just enough to rub against his cock every time he exhaled, and Klaus choked on a whimper, trying not to instinctively start humping into the feeling like he was 14 all over again.

He tried to ignore it and slip back to sleep, but he was practically twitching with energy, wide awake now. Every part of him narrowed in focus on the teasing brush of skin against the head of his dick and the feeling of Dave’s body in his arms. Dave’s torso was relatively hairless, which the guys in their old unit used to haze him over, Klaus too, every time they’d gone out drinking, putting a shot in his hand with jeers of “it’ll put hair on your chest, boy!”

Klaus had many a fond memory of sweaty jungle nights, sneaking glances over at Dave with his vest splayed open, granting Klaus a drool worthy glimpse of his bare chest. Klaus swallowed, breathing a little heavier. Christ.

Klaus felt gleefully perverted as he thrust gently against Dave’s side, the skin there soft with just a little plushness to it that Klaus had _every_ intention on helping feed him up on, and he smirked as he made the decision to see about waking Dave up in the…right frame of mind, so to speak.

He slipped his hand from around Dave’s stomach and up his chest under the blankets to flick at one of Dave’s nipples, gentle and teasing, and then harder when he felt Dave shift under him. Dave’s forehead was pinched but he stayed asleep, and Klaus savored the sound of his breathless little groan as he teased at the other one. Dave had down right _girlishly_ sensitive nipples, he’d found that out that second night in Saigon, when they’d first hooked up after the Disco.

Dave had been looking up at him, reverent and blissed out and drunk off his ass, took them both forever to come, and Klaus had been riding his dick like it was his fucking _job_ , till the muscles in his thighs were getting sore, hips tight from being splayed around Dave’s solid hips. He’d been starting to get snarly and needy then, wanting to come and edging into desperate, and Dave, he knew, was probably too greenhorn to realize he had whiskey dick like nobodies’ business. Klaus had done it experimentally just to see if it did anything for him, most guys he’d been with just thought it was boring and would bat his hands away, focused on gripping Klaus’s hips instead, but _Dave_ , man.

Dave bucked underneath him like Klaus had grazed him with a taser, torso arching off the bed and into Klaus’ hand bowed and live wire tight. Klaus had sworn himself, feeling Dave’s dick inside him spasm, hard, hips trembling under Klaus’s weight. Dave had trembled under his hands, heart rabbiting furiously, and he’d met Klaus’s eyes desperate. “Oh my god, Klaus, Lucky, please, please do that again, touch me again,” he’d begged.

Klaus chuckled fondly at the memory. Even in sleep, the effect it had on Dave’s body was obvious. Klaus leaned into him more, nudging him over onto his side a bit, bear hugging him closer to his chest, and he couldn’t help but moan when his dick pressed up against Dave’s ass. God, like Dave was _made for him_ , the feel of his thick, strong body under his hands, Klaus snuggled as close to him as he could get, palming Dave’s heavy pecs under his hands and thrusting shallowly between Dave’s ass cheeks. He exhaled shakily, and smirked when Dave started to rouse, finally.

He pinched Dave’s nipples between his fingers gently and rolled them a bit, thumbing them and flicking. Dave groaned, and Klaus felt his hips buck up in arousal. Klaus’ hips followed his of their own accord.

“L-lucky?” Dave’s voice was heavy with sleep, and he blindly patted behind his head, reaching for Klaus. Klaus snorted in amusement when Dave’s paw-like hand found his face and absently facepalmed him, patting and clumsy before Klaus kissed it and pushed it off with a jerk of his head.

“You awake, sleeping beauty?” Klaus teased.

Dave grumbled, shifting around in his arms a bit, and Klaus felt him still when he pressed back, feeling Klaus’s hands on his chest and his dick nestled against his ass.

Klaus bit his lip, suddenly worried he’d gone too far, but then Dave sighed and melted back against him. Dave moved his free arm to cover Klaus’s, pulling Klaus tighter around him.

Klaus swallowed, giddy and nervous all at once.

Dave cut through it, sleepy and perfect, when he teased, “That a gun in your pocket or are you jus’ happy ta see me, solider?”

Klaus laughed, breathless, and squeeze Dave tighter. He pressed a wet kiss to the bruised hickey high on Dave’s neck. “Like I said,” Klaus whispered, “I’ve created a monster, haven’t I?”

Dave chuckled, trying to turn and catch Klaus’s eye, but the movement shifted their hips together in a way that left both of them gasping.

“Oh.” Dave whispered.

“We don’t have to, you know,” Klaus said, letting him go and pulling back a bit so that Dave could actually see him.

Dave’s face was just a hint of flushed, and his pupils were blown wide with arousal. It was like a birthday gift and Christmas all at once, and Klaus hadn’t even _known_ this was something he wanted until now, and it was getting handed to him wrapped in ribbon and on a silver platter.

Dave swallowed, nervous and shy, and he shifted forward to bump his nose against Klaus’s, against his cheek and then he kissed him, lips closed.

“I want to.” Dave whispered back. “Do you? I mean…we never…”

Klaus chuckled a little, and had to reach out for him under the covers, feeling flushed and high with excitement. “Oh, _baby_ , I want, Jesus Christ, I want everything you could possibly give me. I just…you know I haven’t been a virgin for like a decade and a half, so this is kinda embarrassing to admit, but I’ve actually never…”

It was Dave’s turn then to look surprised, passion heavy in his eyes. “Oh, wow.” Dave breathed, and Klaus winced a little. He’d always hated fumbling around in sex, not knowing what to do, being _awkward_ at it had been a painful but brief phase of Klaus’s teenage years that he’d been desperate to banish, but the kind of older, experienced guys he’d find in bars at 15, the kind who were _willing to buy a fucking teenager more than a few drinks_ , set him up a line of coke while they were at it…were looking for a tight little twink to fuck. It’d made him feel dirty at first, and it’d hurt, but it’d felt good pretty quick after that, and by 16, he’d learned the delicious thrill of seducing a man twice his age and his size, and the feeling of taking his pleasure riding him _hard_ , with the guy looking up at him like he was god’s gift to mankind.

It wasn’t until Dave that those fumbling, frantic, too-turned-on-to-think feelings had come flooding back, and he knew that the embarrassed, caught-out feeling was painted across his face. He didn’t even have to say anything.

Dave’s face softened, warm and fond, and he wrapped an arm around Klaus and pulled him close, kissing him again.

“God, baby, you have any idea what it does to me, that I get to have a first of yours? It’ll be a first for both of us, just _us_ , yeah?” Dave said quietly.

Klaus shivered. “I know. I want to, and it…” he swallowed, meeting Dave’s concerned eyes, “It means so fucking much to me too, Dave, its just…I’m scared. What if I hurt you, what if it’s awful and I fuck everything up, and—” he was rambling, a little panicked, and Dave’s finger hit his lips, cutting him off.

“You wont. I trust you.” Dave said.

Klaus felt a lump in his throat, and pressed his face into Dave’s neck. “That just makes me even more nervous,” he mumbled.

Dave chuckled a little, petting a hand through his curls. “Welcome to the club, Lucky. You think I wasn’t terrified out of my fucking mind, that first night? I’d never…I’d never had anyone like that, ever in my life, and all I could think about was that you _trusted_ me so much you were gonna let me _inside you_. You’re so skinny and you looked so pretty and fragile and _small_ , and I was scared shitless I was hurting you, like, half the fucking night.”

Klaus laughed a little, trying to remember if Dave’s nervous look had really been that bad. He’d just figured it was nerves and excitement, eager to get his cherry popped and hot for Klaus in that glorious way that made Klaus feel like the king of the world, but now that he’d said it, he could remember it.

Dave’s hands had been clammy and sweaty on his hips, so fucking gentle and reverent, and he’d been so slow and hesitant. Klaus had pegged it on inexperience, wanting to stretch it out and not come too soon.

“I trust you. I love you.” Dave said again, “That doesn’t mean I’m expecting it to be the best sex in the universe, or that I’m gonna have some kinda religious experience here. It might be awkward and clumsy, and you might even accidentally hurt me a little, but I trust you to stop if I ask. So trust me to tell you if I like it, or not, okay?”

Klaus snorted, and nodded slowly. “Yeah.” His voice was unsteady, but it settled out. “Yeah, okay.”

Dave smiled, blushing. “So…”

Klaus laughed a little, feeling giddy, and he crawled out of the blankets enough to grab some of the lube still stashed under the bed frame.

He popped the cap, giving it a sniff test, and wondered for a second if lube went bad. It smelled like normal lube, so he shrugged, and crawled back over.

Dave propped himself up from under the covers onto his elbows, sitting up a bit. Klaus set the lube down and pulled the covers down.

Dave was a fucking vision, all smooth tan and pale muscled flesh, and he was staring down at Klaus with shivery arousal that Klaus felt humming through himself. Dave’s dick was hard and flushed against his stomach, already leaking a little, and Klaus decided he needed to take a little detour first into something comfortable that he _knew_ he was good at to calm his nerves a bit.

Klaus flopped on his belly, down between Dave’s legs, and Dave’s pupils blew out wide at the sight, black swallowing the honey brown to a thin little sliver in the soft daylight of Klaus’s room. Good thing he’d closed the door before they’d gone to bed.

Klaus nuzzled his face against Dave’s thigh, felt him trembling, and teased the sensitive soft skin of his inner thighs with his beard. Dave flinched, ticklish and squirming, and Klaus used his shoulders to push Dave’s legs further apart. His cock was like a hot bar of iron under Klaus’s lips as he leaned forward, foreskin velvety soft, and Dave’s little groan sounded punched out.

Klaus nosed at his balls, teasing, and then licked up to the tip, and Dave was gone, falling back to the bed and clutching at the sheets. Klaus took him into his mouth, and sucked, hard enough that Dave practically screamed, and he held his hips down, savoring the heady weight of his big prick along his tongue, taking him all the way down his throat a couple of times, easy and wet and tight, until Dave’s hand came up frantic on his shoulder, tapping. Klaus pulled off and panted.

He gave Dave’s dick a little kiss, and heard Dave’s whimper. “Jesus _Christ_.”

Klaus chuckled against Dave’s trembling thigh. “It’s Klaus, actually.”

Dave laughed, breathing hard. “If I come, I’m gonna be _way_ too sensitive for you to fuck me, babe, you know how I am.”

Klaus stopped himself half-way back up to take Dave back in his mouth with a curse. “Yeah, you might have a point there.”

Dave hoisted himself back up onto his elbows, abs flexing and going slack, and he glanced at the lube bottle next to his leg a little nervous.

Klaus ignored it for a second, and hooked his hands under Dave’s thighs, trying to lift them up a bit. Dave chuckled, and cooperated, bending his knees and planting his feet on the bed, legs still splayed wide. Klaus stared at his hole, the soft curls of unkempt hair there trailing from down around his dick. It looked so small, tight, and suddenly Klaus knew _exactly_ what Dave had meant. He wasn’t the biggest dick in the locker room, himself, not by a bit, but he felt like he was _huge_ for the first time in his life, thinking about how the hell he was going to fit in there.

Dave coughed, shifting a little nervously, and he was blushed, dark pink across his face and neck, down his chest. “Is it weird that I kinda feel like I’m some pregnant lady or something? The devil are you looking at down there?”

Klaus laughed, and nipped at his thigh. “Well, hun _,_ if there’s anything that’s gonna get you knocked up, it’s gonna be what we’re about to try,” Klaus quipped, giggling.

Dave snorted, still blushing hard. “You wanna quit staring at it? You’re gonna make a guy self-conscious.” Klaus snorted, kissing his thigh again and thought about working a hickey into the soft skin there before a better idea took the wheel from his brain full tilt.

“But it’s so cute,” Klaus teased, panting wetly as he moved his face closer. Dave shivered at the feeling of it, and gave a deep startled shout when Klaus placed a wet open mouthed kiss right over his hole.

“Oh my god, Lucky, what the _fuck,_ ” Dave whimpered, squirming and frantic, backing up on his elbows like he was torn between kicking Klaus away from him and lunging forward and sitting on his face, escaping or chasing the alien feeling that was so fucking good and _dirty_.

Klaus groaned into him, and set about eating him out like a starving man, clutching Dave’s hips to give himself the leverage to lick into him hard and deep.

Dave was panting like a steam engine above him, on the edge of crying it felt so good, and he wanted to crawl into his own skin in shame and arousal hearing the filthy noise pouring out of his own mouth, uncontrollably. He was so turned on he could barely breath.

“Fuck, Klaus, stop, stop, fuck I’m so close.” He gasped.

Klaus pulled back, just as winded and wound up, and tried to catch his breath, resting his head against Dave’s shaking thigh.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Dave hissed. “I can’t believe you just…holy _fuck_.”

Klaus was pretty smugly confident he’d just blown poor Dave’s 1960’s mind.

“What do they even _call_ that?” Dave muttered, dazed. Klaus’s laugh caught him off guard, barking and loud. “Rimming. That or eating out.”

Dave just shook his head. “That doesn’t sound anything like _that_. Jesus.”

Klaus chuckled. “I’ll take it you liked that one, huh?” Dave swore, vehemently.

“I…yeah but I mean, can you even do that? Ain’t you gonna get sick or something?” Dave asked, and it made Klaus’ insides all kinds of warm and shivery to hear Dave’s country accent he usually tried to keep smoothed out rough up his voice.

“Nah.” Klaus reassured him, and reached for the lube. “I mean, if we’d tried that in ‘Nam, yeah probably, I mean, we never washed and I remember what those fucking MRE’s did to _my_ system, dunno about you but—”

Dave laughed, still breathless. “Maybe don’t talk about MRE shits when you just had your mouth all over my _asshole,_ Luck. It kind of puts a damper how damn hot it was.”

Klaus snorted, beyond pleased. “Yeah sure, babe.”

He squeezed out some lube onto his fingers, and rubbed it between them, testing the consistency, relieved that it was still slippery and slick. Klaus was pretty sure there was a tub of Vaseline in the bathroom, but he’d used that before and it was a bitch and a half to clean up. He rubbed his whiskers against Dave’s thigh again, and rubbed a slick finger at Dave’s spit-shiny hole. Dave flinched, shuddering, and gave a choked little breath as Klaus slid it inside him.

Klaus looked up at Dave, trying to catch his eyes and make sure he was okay, but Dave’s face was slack, eyes closed, focus entirely on the feeling of Klaus’s finger.

“Feels okay?” Klaus asked. Dave didn’t open his eyes, but nodded.

Klaus focused on remembering how he usually prepped himself, but that didn’t really help, because he liked it fast, so that the stretch was on the edge of painful when he first took a dick. And that definitely wasn’t what he wanted Dave’s first time to be like. The thought of it still made him shaky and awed.

He flexed his finger, twisting it around a little, and pulled out to gather a little more slick before he slid back in. Dave whimpered a little at that, and Klaus suddenly felt worried, but Dave opened his eyes then, and looked down at Klaus, soft curious little smile on his face. “How’s it feel?” Klaus asked.

Dave looked like he was concentrating, and Klaus felt him clench, fluttering around his finger. Dave’s shoulder shrugged. “M’not really sure. I mean, it’s alright, just kinda feels…full? Weird. Don’t know that I really get the appeal, but it feels alright.”

Klaus twisted his finger a bit, searching, and Dave squirmed, seeming a little uncomfortable, “Hey, babe, what’re you—” Dave started to protest, and then Klaus’s finger rubbed firmly over that little nub, crooking forward towards his dick, and Dave bit off a scream through his teeth. Klaus pulled out, startled. “Oh, fuck, you okay, Dave?”

Dave was panting, eyes wide with shock, and his voice broke when he tried to answer him, “Y-yeah, holy _fuck_ Klaus what the hell did you just _do_?”

Klaus looked at his finger and up at Dave, sitting up in confusion. “I mean, I just touched your prostate? If it hurt, we really gotta get you to a doctor or something, that’s not good.”

Dave shook his head frantically. “I…I’ve never felt somethin’ like that, Luck. Felt good…I mean I think? Fuck, that was intense.”

Klaus was still a little concerned, but he cautiously slipped his finger back in. Dave shivered, and this time when Klaus found his prostate, he petted over it gently, none of the firm pressure of the first time. Dave groaned, hips bucking down against Klaus’s finger, and his cock twitched against his stomach in arousal. Klaus honestly just felt a little poleaxed and so turned on _his_ dick hurt.

“Jesus, you’re a natural, aren’t you?” Klaus whispered, “That feel good, baby?” He stroked over Dave’s prostate again, a little harder, and Dave whimpered.

“God, Klaus,” Dave bit off, “You…you gotta stop. I’m gonna come.”

Klaus almost wanted to just say screw it, and keep going, just to see if he could bring Dave off with literally just his fingers, which holy God what a power-trip _that_ idea was. It made sense, though, Dave was just so sensitive everywhere, why wouldn’t he be here? Jesus.

“Yeah, okay,” Klaus agreed. He added a little slick to his second finger, and Dave grunted at the extra stretch, but after a few minutes, he was right back on the edge. Klaus was so hard he wasn’t sure how there was still blood left in his brain to even think of anything.

Dave’s hand grabbed at his wrist, stopping him, and Klaus froze. “I…I think I’m ready, Lucky.”

Klaus whimpered, dick slapping against his stomach in an eager twitch. “You sure?”

Dave panted, shaking his head, but he was smiling a bit. “Hell if I know. I think so.”

That got him a smile out of Klaus. “Well, okay then. Just…tell me if it hurts okay?”

Dave nodded again, and laid back on the bed. Klaus just sat back on his heels, watching the rise and fall of Dave’s chest, trying to gather his courage. He exhaled, deep and shaky, and looked down. He gave himself a cursory stroke, spreading the left over slick, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to last more than 30 seconds he was so keyed up, but he’d try.

He pushed into Dave’s body slow, so slow he was shaking, and Dave shuddered under him by the time he was fulled seated. Klaus let himself slump down on top of Dave’s chest and he groaned, panting and shuddering hard. “Oh _fuck_ ,” he whimpered.

Dave was so _hot_ and tight around him it was practically agony, and he felt like he might come right this second, but like he never wanted it to be over. Klaus felt Dave’s hands steady his ribcage, soothing and warm, and they slipped up to sink into his hair. Klaus hadn’t even realized he’d closed his eyes until he opened them, and Dave’s face was under his, flushed and fucking _gorgeous_ , and his eyes were smiling. “Hey,” Dave whispered.

Klaus shuddered, and smiled, nuzzling down into him, and he felt Dave’s hips shift, canting up to let him come closer and hold him tighter, pulling him deeper. It felt like forever that Klaus just lay there over Dave and they held onto each other, overwhelmed and lost and found all at once.

Dave shook him out of it when he rolled his hips up a little, experimentally, enjoying the gobsmacked look on Klaus’s usually so cocky face. Weird that he felt more powerful and in control now, with Klaus inside _him_ then he’d felt the first time he’d slept with Klaus all those months ago.

Klaus gave a desperate mewl into Dave’s neck, and his hips bucked instinctively, hitting against that spot that had been driving Dave crazy before. Dave cried out and pulled him forward, chasing the feeling, and clawing at Klaus’s back and ass, and Klaus was gone, blissed out and thrusting hard and fast now, desperate.

Dave didn’t even have time to get a hand on his dick between them before Klaus hit that spot again, and again, and then he was coming harder than he ever had in his life.

Klaus’s animal snarl above him followed by a few more harsh snaps of his hips, perfect and way, way too much now, and Klaus chased after him, spasming and crying out, shuddering and loud.

They sagged into each other, panting and breathless, sticky with sweat and everything else, and Klaus had never felt so vulnerable and close to another person in all his life. Dave shared his air, holding him tight, and Klaus’s hips gave a little instinctive thrust into the wet heat of Dave’s body that had the larger man whimpering, flinching back a bit. “Holy fuck.” Klaus rasped.

Dave echoed the sentiment. He felt warm and sore and melted out in a way that made him feel almost dizzy.

Klaus shuddered through the last little shivers of his orgasm, hollowed out and clumsy as he patted Dave’s flank and pulled out.

Dave grunted, and grabbed at Klaus to try and pull him back up at his side. Klaus found a dirty t-shirt on the floor and used it to wipe off his cock briefly, still way too sensitive to do much, and cleaned up Dave a bit too, before collapsing back on the bed and into the afterglow of the fucking century.

Dave pulled him under his arm, clumsy and fucked out, and he sighed.

“Is it always like that?” Dave muttered.

Klaus laughed, gleeful. “I mean, not that I’m saying I’m not _amazing at sex,_ but no, it’s not normally like that.”

Dave grunted, and ran a hand through his own sweaty hair, smiling. “Good. Cuz’ I’m pretty sure I’d have a coronary.”

They both laughed, comfortable and worn out, just enjoying the peace of the moment for a while.

 

It was of course rudely interrupted by a small flash of light, followed quickly by Five’s thirteen year-old, old man look of bored disgust leering over them from across the room. “Oh good, you’re done. The world’s ending in 3 days. Family meeting in parlor, _now_ , put some fucking pants on.”

Five threw a shirt at Klaus’ face, and teleported away again.

Klaus started laughing, startled and hysterical, giggling like a maniac, and Dave just stared up at the ceiling wondering what the hell kind of family he was getting into, with a baffled smile on his face.

“Man I could go for a smoke.” Klaus exclaimed, sitting up with renewed energy. “You?”

Dave followed him, and winced as he sat up, “Yeah.” Klaus fished a cigarette out of the drawer, some old hand rolled tobacco, half cloves the way Klaus had like them when he was younger, and lit it, taking a long drag and handing it to Dave.

Dave took a hit, and sighed. “I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to keep a straight face talking about some kinda ‘end of days’ shit when all I can think about is how it still feels like there’s a dick in my ass. That and it feels like I have beard burn, which, wow, yeah.”

Klaus cackled. “Luther’s got a stick up his ass in family briefings all the time, you can swap notes.”

Dave glared, amused, and pinched the cigarette between his lips as he stood up. Klaus snickered, and tossed him his old worn cargo pants which Grace had worked a minor miracle on and washed into a reasonable semblance of clean, for which Dave was grateful.

If he was supposed to help this family of yahoos save the world, he was kinda hoping he wouldn’t have to do it in pajamas. Now if he could just figure out where the hell his rifle had gotten off to…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot is coming! Woo. Also, not that this fic is ending any time soon, but I already have some AUs and side stories planned for this storyline, for once it's wrapped up. Hit me up on tumblr (link on my user page) with suggestions or requests, or leave your ideas in the comments! 🖤🦕


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey kids it's been a while. But the good news is I'm off the night shift and hopefully will have a little more time to be a real person instead of a zombie this week ୧☉□☉୨  
> As always, comments are love, and I love you guys too 🖤🦕

Five took the coffee cup out of Luther’s clueless hands, taking a swill and grimacing.

Who did an old man have to kill around here to get a decent cup of coffee?

He scowled at it, and portalled over to the bar at the far side of the downstairs parlor. Nothing a little Irish wouldn’t fix, really. Five heard Luther’s grunt of startled annoyance, and saw Allison make a vaguely shushing gesture at him, clearly not wanting to start a fight this morning. Vanya was sitting opposite of Luther on the chaise couch, posture like she wanted to climb back into her own bones, small and caved in around the cup of hot coffee Allison had handed her.

Five idly wondered if Allison had remembered that Vanya didn't like coffee, but tea, and figured it didn't matter because she looked like she was more interested in leeching the warmth from the outside of the steaming cup instead. 

Five uncorked the bottle of thirty year old Laphroaig, giving it a quick sniff, then shrugged and poured out a few glugs into his coffee cup. The smokey sweet burn of good whiskey cut through the bitter mediocre coffee like a hot knife through butter, making Five sigh in deep pleasure. The little things like that were what really kept a guy going. That, and Dolores wasn’t here to rib him about his alcohol consumption or the early hour of it, so the indulgence was all the sweeter without her nagging. 

Allison was looking at him when he recapped his coffee, eyebrow raised, distinctly unimpressed.

“Was that really necessary, Five?” She asked.

Five portalled back to the other side of the couch so that he could claim the wingback leather chair he’d dragged from the library. “Yes, it was.”

Diego snorted, sipping his own coffee from where he stood behind Vanya. “I mean, you did give Luther his coffee before _Five_ , what did you think would happen?”

Five smirked into his coffee, settling into his throne. The effect was slightly dampened by the reality that his feet only just barely touched the floor, but needs must. He tipped his cup in Diego’s direction, nodding. “Precisely.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “I was actually talking about the two shots of Dad’s whiskey you just added to your coffee. But sure, we could talk about how you’re all _still brats_.”

Five scoffed, and Allison glared, and handed Luther the other cup of coffee she had in the carrier. Luther grunted, grateful. Five briefly contemplated phasing over, stealing his second coffee just to spite him, but the big oaf looked as pale and tired as the rest of them, and he decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“The world ends in two days,” Five snarled, “And my body may be a child's but my consciousness is _58_. Cut the highroad, sis.”

Vanya flinched, pale and kept holding onto her coffee not drinking it. “Hey, guys…can we just not?” She said quietly.

They all winced at that, Diego looking like he might want to snap something cruel at her opinion and how _unwelcome_ it was, but he stopped himself. Last night had changed that. 

The look in his eyes softened, when she looked up, shaking and scared but trying to settle herself. “This is a lot, but fighting isn’t gonna make it better. Klaus almost _died_ last night. Ben and Dad are already dead. We…we’re all we’ve got.”

Allison smiled, warm and sad, and sat next to her. She reached out and gave her leg a squeeze. “Yeah.”

“ _Touching_ as that sentiment might be,” Five snapped, condescending and trite, “It doesn’t solve our problem. It’s not like if we just sat around and sang Kumbaya that would just make all the ways this family is fucked in the head go away.”

Luther stood up, furious, “Goddamnit, Five, could you not say stuff like that?”

Diego reluctantly agreed with Five. “He’s still right.”

Five scoffed, irritated already, and got up to pace. “Of course I am. I’m a genius.”

Diego was tempted to see if his aim was good enough to peg the little bastard between the eyes with the back end of one of his knives.

“Well if you’re such a _genius_ how come you don’t have all this shit figured out, huh?” Luther snapped, too loud, filling the room. “You didn’t know where Klaus went, and neither did we, and apparently you don’t even know how to stop the apocalypse either, you know, the one _you time travelled from the future where it happened_ , to prevent it!”

Five’s face contorted in rage, but he kept pacing. Good old Number One, so much like their dad, if he hadn’t been such a tightwad, Five might’ve suspected Luther was actually his by blood.

Allison hissed something at Luther under her breath, threatening, and watched her family all deliberately not make eye contact in the painful silence. Luther sagged back into the couch, scowling, and Diego’s grip on his coffee was white at the knuckles.

“Look, Five, we’re all on edge about this, okay? I get the urgency, and we believe you, it’s just a lot. The past couple _days_ have been a lot.” Allison said softly.

Five stopped pacing and whipped around to look at her, that familiar haunting face from the day he’d disappeared staring back at her with the weight of the world and the fire of its end in his eyes. A lifetime of loneliness at war with the passion of her genius baby brother.

Five’s voice was like iron, cold and dead and horrible between them. “No, _a lot_ was jumping into the future and realizing that your whole family is _dead_ when you’re only 13. _A lot_ is spending the next 45 years finding out the _entire_ _world is dead_ , and that there’s nothing you can do to ever bring any of it back.”

Allison felt a lump well up in her throat at how raw he sounded with horror and exhaustion, and she saw him flinch and visibly pack away the feeling of it. Calm and cold in a way the first-time around thirteen old Five had never been capable of.

“Five…” Vanya said softly, sad. “I’m so sorry.”

Five scoffed, smiling darkly. “Don’t be. Sorry doesn’t fix anything.”

Vanya tried to smile, but it was weak and scared. “Still doesn’t mean you deserved a fate like that. It had to have been awful.”

“It was the apocalypse. Of course it was awful.” Five said simply, and drank the rest of his coffee.

Allison’s face scrunched up in dawning confusion, and Diego quirked an eyebrow in askance when he saw it.

“Allison, what’re you thinking?” Diego asked.

“Five…if the apocalypse was so awful, why did you _stay_?” She asked, confused.

Five’s eyebrows rose in surprise, indignant. “You think I chose to stay? _Please_.” He shook his head, smile bitter and harsh, and he was practically shouting. “What, you think I just fucked around in that burned out wasteland for 45 years with my thumbs up my ass, doing _nothing_ but feeling sorry for myself? I tried to come back, too many times to count, Allison!”

Allison and Vanya startled, and the hairs on Diego’s neck stood up. He’d heard that kind of hard edge in the voice of many a hardened criminal, a _killer_ , and it was alien in the mouth of what looked like now his kid brother.

“The old man was right,” Five snarled, turning on his heel and pacing furiously, discarding the empty cup and his hands waving, angry and wild like they had when they were kids.

“ _Fuck him_ , but he was right. I thought it was just a wall, and I beat my head against it trying to _acorn_ , until I practically caved my head in, but no matter how I tried…”

Diego saw him hesitate, anger starting to deflate. “If you couldn’t do it with your powers, how the hell’d you actually get back here?”

Five grinned, cold and hard. “Because, dear brother, sometimes what you need to do to _acorn_ is _shake the tree_.”

…

 

Dave felt like a new man in his clean cargo pants, fresh socks over the clean bandages on his feet, and the worn in leather of his boots, wiped smooth of the mud and grime they’d been caked in since day one, freshly oiled and the leather looking better than ever. He wasn't sure who'd fixed them up for him, but he needed to thank them.

Klaus scrounged up a plain tee shirt for him to throw under his vest, and Dave very deliberately tried not to laugh at the selection. God the boys in their unit would’ve laughed themselves blue in the face, to see Klaus’s wardrobe.

If nothing else had convinced him the future was different, the fact that Klaus was currently standing in front of him in black leather pants that were sinfully tight and laced up on the edges over a tantalizingly wide strip of bare skin like a _corset_ was enough to do it. Dave’s dick gave a valiant little twitch at that. _Down boy_.

“Jesus, Lucky, I don’t even think a Viet hooker would wear those,” Dave whined.

Klaus popped back up from where he was tossing through feather boas and skirts and a staggering array of colors and _very short child sized shirts_ for some reason, and he grinned. Klaus petted down his legs, over the pants, and winked. “You like?”

Dave chuckled, and got to his feet off the bed with a grunt. “You never did have any shame. They suit you.”

Klaus fluttered his eyelids, fanning himself like he might swoon. “Of course they do. I am a fashion masterpiece, thank you.”

He turned back to his pile in the closet, and Dave very deliberately concentrated on the floor under his lover’s bare feet so he wouldn’t have to watch the way the leather gripped Klaus’s ass like a second skin. The part of his brain that was all animal instinct was just panting, tail wagging, and trying to convince him that maybe if the world really was ending in two days, they should make the best of it, and just take all their clothes back off and go back to bed.

But he wanted more than two days to hold Klaus, wanted to see if the future was really like Allison was saying. He wanted to take Klaus everywhere, go dancing and show Klaus’s beautiful scrawny ass off to the world, dance too close to be friendly and drunk, as possessive as he wanted to.

He wanted to take Klaus to those ice cream parlors he used to see the assholes he’d known from school at, all those years ago with their sweethearts, and split a sundae with one spoon, feeding Klaus more than his share and kissing the bits off his face he’d miss getting into his mouth on purpose. Dave wanted a _life_ with Klaus, a picket fence and dogs and cats, wild and full and as many years as he had left, and his heart tightened fondly in his chest when Klaus spun around holding some kind of silky looking blouse with ruffles on the shoulders like a bird of paradise, ugly and polka dotted and _perfect_.

Klaus held it up against himself, and looked at Dave, raising an eyebrow. “Hmm, what do you think, babe?”

Dave laughed, and walked over to pull Klaus close for a quick kiss. “I think it’s very _you_.”

Klaus seemed to frown at that, and Dave was briefly worried that’d been the wrong thing to say, but Klaus just shrugged at chucked it back in pile.

“So true, but if we’re gonna stop the world from ending, I can’t do it in my _favorite shirt_ , I mean, honestly what if it gets ruined?” Klaus tutted.

Dave smiled, and gave Klaus a teasing tap on the ass. “Well pick something then, so we can stop the apocalypse. I’m hungry.”

Klaus extracted a tie-died looking one of those kids tee-shirts, grinning as he tugged it over his head. The shirt looked impossible soft, and Dave knew without knowing why that this was definitely something made for _girls_ , just how thin and soft and comfortable it looked, while almost casually sexual. It ended high enough up Klaus’s sides to bare his belly button and slim hips, and Dave’s mouth felt dry. Jesus.

“Ground control to Major Dave?” Klaus teased, throwing his own cut off fatigue shirt vest over it.

Dave pulled him close and kissed him hard, and Klaus bucked under his hands, kissing back eagerly. Klaus pulled back, and he nipped at Dave’s lip as he did it, and his eyes were sparkling with delight when he looked at Dave.

Dave just suddenly had a moment, breathless and struck, just blown away by the feeling and the man in his arms, and when he shifted, he felt a familiar weight in his vest pocket.

He grinned, kissing Klaus again, hard and quick, and pulled back. “Hey Lucky. I’ve got a kind of wild idea.”

Klaus grinned back, “I don’t know what it is but I am _all in_.”

Dave swallowed, giddy and shaky with sudden adrenalin. He felt high and stone cold sober all at once, and he grabbed the worn, dinged metal object out of his pocket and held it in his fist.

“I remember all the guys in my high school, back home, they used to give their class rings to a girl when they were going steady, small town like that, that was as good as engaged, and I always thought it was so dumb…but I got one, anyway. It’s not very good metal, and the stone’s fake, but I used to think about givin’ it to somebody, too, even though I knew if I ever offered it, I’d probably get my head kicked in.”

Dave felt so shivery with nerves now, but just overwhelmingly _sure_ and he held out his hand, the worn silver ring with its chipped red glass stone, heavy in the center of his upturned palm.

“I never wore it, cause it was too small and I don’t wear jewelry, but I held onto it all these years, fuck knows why…I want you to wear it, if you’ll have me, Luck.” Dave said quietly.

Klaus looked pale and his eyes were wet when he looked up from Dave’s hands and met his warm brown eyes. “Oh my god.”

Dave’s heart stuttered, and he winced. “It doesn’t have to mean we gotta…get married or anything, if you don’t want to, it can mean whatever you want it to mean, I—”

Klaus’s mouth collided into his, bruising hard and Dave barely caught them against the wall. He kissed back just as hard, mind racing, and he felt Klaus’s tears against his cheeks, before he softened the kiss. Klaus pulled back, holding Dave’s face in his hands, and his eyes were wide and searching, desperate.

“Oh, Dave _, baby, yes_. Fuck yes, oh my god, are you _kidding_ , of course I want to marry you, asshole,” Klaus whimpered in a rush, giddiness making his voice thready, and Dave echoed it, the two of them laughing through tears and holding onto each other, just sharing each other’s air.

Dave tilted his hand, rolling the ring into his other hand and held it out for Klaus’s hand. Klaus gave a quiet gasp, and held out his tattooed right hand. Dave turned his palm over, smiling at the _HELLO_ tattooed there, his human Ouija board, and pressed a kiss to it before he turned it back over and slipped the ring on Klaus's ring finger. Klaus stared at it like Dave had just put a million dollar rock on his finger, and Dave wanted to cry again, but Klaus caught him again in a kiss.

When he pulled away, Klaus’s eyes were bright, practically possessed with excitement.

 

Dave watched that excitement suddenly fall off, and Klaus’s eyes practically rolled back in his head, pure white and nearly glowing, horrible and blind.

“Klaus!” Dave shouted, shaking him, but Klaus was stock still and stiff under his hands, unresponsive.

“Klaus! Jesus, Lucky, come on.” Dave shook him again, feeling panicked.

Klaus’s hand grabbed him back, but his eyes stayed over Dave’s shoulder unseeing and wide. “No… _No, Vanya, no!_ ”

Dave paused, and held Klaus still and he started thrashing, fighting to get to something only he could see, desperate and mad for a second before he collapsed, sobbing, into Dave’s arms limp as a rag doll.

“Oh my god, _Vanya_ , no, nonono…” Klaus whimpered, rasping in Dave’s ear.

Dave clutched him close, feeling terrified. “Klaus?”

Klaus pulled back, struggling, but his eyes were back to their familiar grey-green when he found Dave’s worried gaze again. “I…oh god Dave, I…I’m not sure how to say this, but I think...I think I just saw the future.”

Dave swallowed. Judging by Klaus’s reaction, it wasn’t good.

Christ on a cracker.

 

…

 

 

Luther’s handsome dumb face twisted in irritation, “You wanna stop talking in riddles and tell us what the hell that means, exactly?”

Five snarled like a wolf backed into a corner. “Jesus what’re you, thick? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. And I may be psychotic, but I’m not insane. At least, not anymore.”

Allison made a noise of frustration, and Diego scowled. “What’re you saying Five?”

Five screamed through his teeth in frustration. “If the goal is to hit the ball when it’s coming towards you, too fast to see, sooner or later you realize that no matter how fast you swing, you’ll always miss. So you have to learn to _see the damn ball instead_. I couldn’t make my powers _swing fast enough_ , so I started trying to figure out how to see the ball _slower_.”

Diego chuckled, shaking his head, “Jesus christ, you've actually lost it.”

Five’s laugh really did sound mad, but he had his equations-on-the-wall fire-bright look in his eyes.

“I couldn’t have done it without dear old Dad, really.” Five muttered. “It was his groundwork, albeit extremely crude, that gave me the idea. I found his notes years ago, from when he was developing his _serum_ that he used to turn Luther into a Planet of the Apes reject, and that’s when it came to me. Dad always used to tell us how it is the mind itself that _limits our potential_ , after all. He was obsessed with improving us, all those years, making us better weapons for him to control, well, sooner or later, even that would've had _limitations_.”

Diego felt as though someone had ripped the rug right out under the feet of his brain, breathless, and the pieces finally fell into place. “You used it on yourself. Didn’t you?”

Five’s eyes were fever bright. “Yes.”

Luther looked positively gutted, pale and fragile in a way that was startling on a man so big, and Allison and Vanya didn’t look much better.

“You did _what_?” Allison hissed.

“I took Dad’s serum and I _improved it_." Five said, "His prototype he used on Luther was crude at best, but it was ingenious. It wasn’t some kind of monkey hybrid potion, like it turned out. It was aimed at genetic modification, targeting the part of our DNA that makes us _special_ , and amping it up to 11. Like I said, it was crude. Dad was trying to take a machete to what required a surgeon’s blade, that’s why when the serum hijacked Luther’s super strength, it combined that with…local resources of leftover ape-DNA in humans, and made him much, much stronger. With hairy inconvenient consequences, but it was…effective, if simplistic.”

Luther choked. “Oh _god_ , why would he…?”

Allison looked stricken, and rushed to Luther’s side, squeezing his massive shoulder, trying to comfort him.

Five looked unimpressed. “You’re alive. You wouldn’t be, if he hadn’t used it. And it's not a perfect solution, even now. When I finally used it on myself, time and space itself spread out before me like a roadmap, perfectly legible and neat, but it comes at a cost. There's a chance I may never age, in fact I'd say it's likely.”

It was just so  _Five_ to be talking about immortality, the mythical the Fountain of Youth, like an inconvenient side effect.

“This is insane, I mean, Five, why—” Allison started, but Diego cut her off, snarling mad, and he pulled a knife, getting up in Five's face in an instant.

“No, _fuck_ no, the real question, asshole, is why the hell you used it on _Klaus_. I get why a little psycho egomaniac like you would juice himself up with some kind of fucked up sci-fi experimental crap Dad concocted to, what, _improve us_ , like he hadn’t fucked us up enough already, but no, you—”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the heroic defense, Diego, but Tiny Psycho did what he had to. I’d be dead if he hadn’t.” Klaus’s voice echoed from the stairwell, and they all froze, staring.

Klaus grinned, wide and crazy like always from the top of the landing. He had one of Dad’s more gothic looking cane’s in his hand, and he was leaning on it fairly heavy, but on his own two feet, Dave at his side, both of them shouldering their battered AR-15s in a way that looked unsettlingly at ease.

“You’re up, good.” Five snapped, sounding relieved. “Took you long enough.”

Klaus limped his way down the stairs, Dave trailing behind him like a lumbering shadow, and Klaus paused like a king at court, rapping his cane against the floor.

“Well, my good men, and _ladies_ , if we’re all good on the family bonding over shared trauma and coffee, which I am _frankly offended_ no one got me one, by the way, we should probably stop the apocalypse. Because I think these newly expanded mumbo jumbo powers Five spiked me with made me I see the future and like I said, _called it, it’s shit._ And I’m not dying in it, because _I’m getting married_.”

Dave just shrugged when everyone looked at them in disbelief, but there was an ugly steel class ring on Klaus's hand and a piece of fuzzy black yarn on Dave's, and he looked impossibly fond. 

Dave slung his gun around in front of him, ejecting the magazine. He looked at the side of the mag for a second, frowning at the lack of brass behind the sight hole at the 20 round mark, then slapped it back in. The sound of him racking a round in the chamber with startling speed and proficiency was shockingly loud in the stunned parlor, and only Klaus didn’t flinch.

“Y’all know where we could pick up some five-five-six? Cause something tells me we’re gonna need more than 20 rounds to get this job done.” Dave said simply.

Klaus made a _hurry up_ gesture, eager and impatient, and stomped his foot when no one moved. “Come _on_ , let’s _go_. Hel-looooo, _Klaus get out of the van_ ," he singsonged,  "Klaus is _driving the van now bitches, let’s go_.”

Five grinned. 

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come! Side note: I just found out recently about how on set filming, Dave's dog tags said his name is David Katz, and he's canonically Jewish, which is rad as hell, and makes totally awesome sense, since him being born to post-WWII Jewish immigrants is just sheer perfection, he'd be such a beautiful patriot.  
> I'm undecided if I'm gonna work it into the story for the future, because I honestly just don't have the background to write an authentically Jewish character, and my head canon for Dave was more corn-fed poor rural heartland Americana.  
> I think it'd be cool to explore but probably not here. That said, Dave isn't really religious either way in this story, so if it's your jam that Dave's Jewish, cool beans dude, I'll try not to be too...contradictory?  
> I just feel like it'd be more condescending to try and slap some "I think this is Jewish people stuff" stereotypical crap onto his character when I know next to nothing about Jewish culture and if it's gonna be done it needs to be done right.  
> That and to be brutally honest to, I think foreskins are fun, and so Dave still has his in my head, hahaha. 
> 
> anyway, so there's that, figured I'd put that out there, love you guys 🖤🦕


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Quick chapter today, hopefully a bigger one in the next day or two! Love the comments as always, they give me life and water my crops. 🖤🦕  
> (see end notes for some random side notes)

Five’s voice was cool and pleased, face smug as always, as he seemed to restrain his initial glee.

“1960’s army-grade weapons are a tad primitive for what I had in mind, gentlemen, but I won’t turn down a firearm and a useful body, not when everyone else in this room is who I have to work with,” he said. 

Luther looked like he very much wanted to be offended by that, and scowled at Five, then back at Dave and Klaus.

“Jesus, Klaus, do you even know how to use that thing without putting somebody’s eye out?” Luther snapped.

Klaus just grinned, miming a finger gun with his free hand, and winked at Luther as he fired the pretend trigger. “I was the best shot in the unit, baby,” he said. “Besides, Luther, don’t you remember all those _‘proper usage of firearms and the disarming of criminals’_ lessons with Daddy Dearest?”

Diego winced, and Luther looked at Dave, baffled, as if he expected him to deny it, but Dave just nodded, and swung his rifle back over his shoulder.

“He was pretty damn good,” Dave said, “I once saw him take the head off a charlie in the dark from maybe a hundred yards. Sniper squad even tried to pull him for some mission into hill country, but Klaus told ‘em to fuck off.”

Diego grunted, impressed, but said “Yeah and when we were 11, he shot the taxidermy-ed moose upstairs with a 12 gauge shot gun, after running around with it in nothing but Mom’s lipstick on his face and chest for ‘warpaint’ and a loincloth made out of one of Allison’s skirts, sent Dad into a _conniption_." Klaus cackled.

Diego's smile was tiny but fond, and he said, "Klaus’ words were, and I quote, ‘ _Cowboy up, mother fucker_.’ How long did Mom have to wash your mouth out with soap for that one again?”

Klaus sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes over to Dave. “No one in this family appreciates me.”

Dave chuckled, shaking his head. “My ma’d switched my ass raw for saying something like that at 11, babe. Hell, she’d probably’ve tried even at my age now.”

“The moose had to be stopped. It was an abomination, and it disrupted the flow of _Qi_ in the room.” Klaus deadpanned seriously.

Five coughed around a laugh, trying to hide it, but Klaus had become a pro at making Five laugh and break his serious-genius character before he’d even been six. It had been an old game between the two of them, and Klaus was pleased getting old and jaded hadn't changed it, too much. 

Luther’s scowl made a constipated little twitch towards a smile, and he looked like he wanted to laugh too, but held it down better than Five had.

“Five was the only one who was ever any good at shooting anyway,” Vanya said quietly, “I remember, I was so terrified I couldn’t even hold the gun up straight.”

Five’s humor faded, and glanced back at her. “It terrified all of us. We were _ten_. I was just better at compartmentalizing. That, and I’ve had over 40 years to get even better at it. Sooner or later, the faces behind a scope stop being _people_ and just become targets. I imagine you two know something about that.”

Dave stared back at the thirteen year old Five in sympathetic horror, meeting his fierce eyes, and Klaus flinched, hand gripping his cane tightly.

The room got quiet, Allison shifting away from Luther’s side to collect herself, looking pale, Vanya even more so, and Diego just seemed pained.

Five seemed to sense the damper he’d put on the mood after a moment, and shrugged, walking up to Dave and holding out his hand.

“I’m Five, Klaus’s brother. To save time, I’m actually a fifty eight year old man from the future who used a briefcase, like the one you and Klaus were in possession of, to conduct assassinations to protect strategically significant historical events. I never got your name.”

Dave’s eyes were wide, but he stuck his hand out and shook Five’s on autopilot. “Christ, uh…Sergeant David Katz, 173rd Airborne. Call me Dave?”

Five shook it, stern and brief, and raised an eyebrow at the piece of black yarn on his ring finger but didn’t mention it.

“You’ll do.” Five said dismissively, and turned to Klaus, putting his hands in the pockets of his cuffed trousers.

“Just don’t take away his coffee, alcohol, or his uh, mannequin, and you should be good,” Klaus whispered to Dave, far too loudly to be covert.

“No problem,” Dave said numbly, still shocked.

“Klaus you seem to be up and about fine. Full motor function?” Five asked.

Klaus picked his cane up off the ground and did a little shuffle, not really able to keep the small wince off his face but he grinned through it. “Jiminy _Christmas_ would you look at that!”

Five cocked an eyebrow. “I can’t know for sure without further tests, which we don’t have the time for, but I hypothesize that the rapid healing was nothing but a temporary side effect of the…advanced mutation taking effect. The precognition, however…”

Klaus looked a little pale, and he winced. “I guess that’s nice. I’m glad we’re sticking to the theme and adding more reasons for people to think I’m crazy, and more reasons for me to…well shit.” He glanced at Dave, who reached out and squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. 

“Point being, try not to get shot again.” Five said baldly.

Klaus glared back, unamused. “I mean, _solid rager_ , bro. 10 out of 10, who doesn’t love sponging up a good _anti-material_ round every now and then, am I right, kids? _No_ _shit, Five_.”

Five hid his smirk, and Klaus felt vindicated.

Allison gave a quiet huff of frustration, and stood up. “Five, do we even have any idea where to start? Because so far we’ve been doing a lot of sitting around and arguing, and nothing of any, I don’t know, _productive value_?” 

Five glowered at her, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “I have a lead.”

That got everyone’s attention focused on him in a hurry.

“Well?” Allison asked, impatient after the dramatic pause.

Five always loved to be the damn genius and tease them with how _idiotic and slow_ they were before he dropped his mind-blowing revelations on them, and like Luther had said earlier, she hadn’t missed that.

Five opened his mouth and was interrupted by the jangly obnoxious sound of a cellphone ringtone at full volume. Vanya practically jumped an inch off the couch in surprise, and flushed guiltily when everyone stared at her.

She fished the small flip phone out of her pocket, and paled a little at the number. “Hey, guys, I’ve got to take this. It’s Leonard, he’s probably worried.”

Luther glared, unimpressed and irritated. “You’re telling me your boyfriend being needy is more important than _stopping the apocalypse_?”

Vanya flinched, but rather than looking cowed or contrite, for once, Vanya’s soft eyes flared with anger back. “You know what, Luther, go to hell.” She snapped, quiet and hard, and stood up to leave, phone ringing in her hand and then going quiet.

“What, we’re actually _including_ you for once, and you’ve got better things to do now?” Luther retorted, and Vanya stopped gathering her coat up, whipping around, coffee cold and abandoned on the end table, and she looked for a second like she’d bring a piano down on Luther’s head if she could just _will_ it with her thoughts. Luther paled, flinching back just a bit.

“I guess that settles it, then, doesn’t it? All these years I thought it was _Dad_ that didn’t want me around, but look at that, Dad’s gone and nothing’s changed.” Vanya’s voice was raised to practically a shout, deafeningly loud by comparison to her usual soft, muted tones. “I guess that means _you’re the assholes_ , then, huh.” She hissed, and spun on her heel, storming out.

“Vanya!” Allison called after her, but Vanya look over her shoulder was brief and stone cold, practically stopping her sister in her tracks. Vanya kept walking, and they heard the door slam in the stunned quiet of the room.

Klaus swallowed, and surveyed the room. Diego looked guilty, so did Allison, and Five just looked frustrated and bored. Luther was hard to read, but he certainly didn’t look ashamed.

“Well,” Klaus exclaimed. “Now that that’s out there. You assholes wanna hit up Griddy’s and continue this planning sesh, because I can practically _hear_ Dave’s stomach growling, and I’m not one to deprive a man of hard earned post-sex diner food. ”

Dave choked, blushing and scandalized, and Klaus patted his hip affectionately, grinning.

The tension in the room popped like a balloon, collapsing into stunned quiet laughter or hidden smiles, a familiar reaction. Klaus wasn’t so much incapable of silencing the voice in his head that screamed out for being the center of attention as he was just frequently inclined to ignore it for the sake of the greater good.

Because for all that there were so many serious, horrible moments in their childhood, Klaus had quickly learned that at least when everyone was laughing at _him_ , shocked and appalled and amused all at once, like they couldn’t believe he’d just done that or said that or were thinking, _oh my god, that is so Klaus_ …at least when they were doing _that, n_ obody was thinking about what they’d been thinking before that, that’d been so dark and horribly quiet they could barely breath.

“Griddy’s has _acceptable_ coffee. You’re buying me some.” Five said.

Klaus gasped, clutching at imaginary pearls. “How _dare_ you, you little thief, you still owe me $20.” 

Five raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and said, “Your liver and what’s left of your dopamine receptors thank me. And as _unfortunate_ as reality is, I can’t exactly order my own. Besides. I saved your life, you owe me. I’ll get the van.” 

Allison, Diego and Luther were looking at each other like they weren’t really sure what to make of all this but not sure what else they could do but go along with the madness. Five headed out the front door for the alley he'd left his van in. 

Diego seemed to pack whatever he was thinking into a box and sit on it, cramming it shut and making his tentative peace with it, but Allison had her nervous mother-hen up, practically wringing her hands.

“I’ll catch up.” She said, “I need to go after Vanya.”

Luther started to protest, but she silenced him. “No, Luther, Five said the only chance we have at stopping this thing is the full force of the Academy. And maybe I’m the only one willing to admit it, but that includes Vanya.”

Allison headed for the door, heels a dull click, and she paused as she passed by Klaus.

She reached out to pull him into a hug, surprising Klaus and nearly unsteadying him, but he fell into it. The warmth and force of it was the comfort he’d been missing in their first hug, back when they’d first started this mess of an ill-fated reunion. All the stiffness and awkwardness gone, and nothing remained but the sisterly love he’d cherished when they were teenagers before they’d grown apart.

All the affection and long nights of talking about boys over bottles of illicit nail polish, sharing their treasured makeup and ‘civilian’ clothing collection their dad _definitely_ didn’t know they had…Allison pulled back, and Klaus gave her a reassuring smile.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Klaus.” She said, smiling back, and then turned and headed for the door. “I’ll meet you guys at the diner in a bit. Feed your boy, I’m sure he’s had his work cut out for him.” She teased, giving Dave a wink.

Dave flushed crimson in a heartbeat, and Klaus smiled, hearing Allison’s quiet laugh as she grabbed her coat and went out the door.

“Gross,” Ben commented from over Klaus’s other shoulder, almost startling him. He’d gotten used to being without his brother, the past two years in Vietnam, and Ben had generously found something else to do while Klaus and Dave slept and got _reacquainted_. Klaus grinned at Ben, heart squeezed with happiness to have him back around. He’d missed him, _so_ much.

Dave just kept blushing, glancing at Ben in embarrassment.

Klaus heard a weird choked noise from the couch, and saw Diego’s eyes blow wide in shock. “Hey, Klaus?” he asked.

Klaus raised an eyebrow in askance. “Yeah?”

“Am I the only one who sees the ghost of Ben standing there?” Diego rasped, breathless.

Klaus grinned at Ben, maniac and thrilled, and Ben smiled. Klaus could see tears welling up in his eyes when Ben turned back to look at Diego. “Hey, bro,” Ben said, waving.

Diego’s shock bled into a smile back, and he was on his feet in a heart beat, walking over and stopping himself short of enfolding Ben in a hug.

Ben caught the abortive gesture, and tentatively reached out and poked him. His finger hit Diego’s shoulder, pushing him back just a bit. Diego’s eyes got even wider, and Ben gasped, and launched himself at Diego.

“Diego!!” Ben cheered, and hugged his brother tightly.

Luther’s gasp was just as shocked, and Ben looked over Diego’s shaking shoulder, to give him a smile and wave too. Luther’s eyes were wet and he waved back.

Klaus just smiled, twirling his cane like a vaudeville showman. “Am I good or what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I just wanted to make a quick side note plug for gun safety, because I (like Hollywood) enjoy the sound effect and dramatic moment of that sweet round-racked-into-the-chamber noise. That said, having handled and fired the M-4 and AR-15 modern variants of the same guns Dave and Klaus have here, I just wanted to clarify.   
> Racking a round into the chamber of a semiautomatic rifle like Dave did last chapter puts the gun in a condition where all you need to fire is pull the trigger, and you really shouldn't be rolling around "locked and loaded" like that, unless you're in a war zone and anticipating the need to fire in the immediate future.   
> My excuse is that it's gay fanfiction, y'all probably don't care, and they're Vietnam vets.   
> That's just my plug for gun safety because I want you kids to stay safe out there!   
> Also, in response to a lot of the comments as far as Dave still being able to be Jewish and from poor rural America, 100% agree. I think head cannon for me at this point is that his mom was Jewish, but his dad wasn't, so he wasn't raised Jewish, just with some bits here and there from her. After all the shit that happened with his family (which I intend to explore in detail later), he decided to enlist under his mom's maiden name, and would've put Jewish for his religion because she was the only one who'd've cared if he died...so it made sense for his funeral rites to be what would make her happy. 
> 
> Anyway that's just my imagining of it. Like I said, TBC on that later.   
> To GRIDDY'S MY LADS and LASSIES!! 🖤🦕


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so I know I said there'd be plot and I promise there will be, but as our lady and goddess Jenna Marbles once said, "We interrupt this moment of Nasty, for a moment of appreciation..."  
> now enjoy some sibling antics over breakfast, because I think we can all admit that wholesome Hargreeves moments are too few and far between. As always, I love you guys and your comments. 🖤🦕

The older woman at the counter looks a little frazzled, but genuinely cheerful unlike the last time Five had seen her, a strange new warmth creasing her otherwise haggard beyond her years face.

She beams at Luther, who ended up taking the front of their oddball posse with his usual lack of spacial awareness. “How many people do you folks have today?”

Luther beamed back, sheepish. “Uh, six, I think. Maybe eight, but I’m not sure when they’ll be joining us, ma’am.”

Diego rolled his eyes at the obvious flattery in Luther’s tone, all Captain America like always.

The woman’s smile stretched a little bit more strained, but she nodded, grabbing a veritable stack of menus. She seemed to be counting over Luther’s shoulder, and it didn’t escape Klaus’s notice, or Ben’s, that she skipped over pointing at Ben entirely, her face scrunching up a little in confusion at the apparent _five_ party members. She seemed to shrug it off as unimportant, and Ben looked at Klaus, raising an eyebrow as they followed her to the big, obnoxiously colored pleather corner booth.

“You do that on purpose?” Ben whispered.

Klaus gave a clueless shrug. “I don't think so?”

“Huh.” Ben said quietly.

Luther gave the wimpy hollow legged steel chair a brief glance, winced, and started to work his massive self in between the table and the bench, just barely wide enough to fit him, right in the armpit of the booth. He looked comically huge against the rest of the booth, which now looked like it had room for 2 or 3 more vice the previous expanse fit for 6 or 7.

“Oh my.” The waitress said faintly under her breath, “Oh, I, uh…I’m really sorry about that, sir, we usually don’t…I mean, are you comfortable there, dear?”

Luther hid his mild wince under a broad showman’s smile, and he grinned at her sweetly. “Absolutely, ma’am.”

Diego didn’t quite swallow his snort of amusement at how out of breath Luther sounded, probably from having to suck in his gut a little to fit.

“Great!” She replied, back to forced bubbly. “It might be a bit of a tight fit for eight, but…”

“It’s totally fine, Doll.” Dave said, giving her a warm, reassuring smile that seemed to melt her right down to her kitten heels. She flushed just a little, clearly smitten. “Oh, stop it, you charmer! Why, I don’t think I’ve heard somebody call me _doll_ since my Daddy was my age!”

Dave grinned, just as pleased. “What can I say, I’m an old soul.”

Klaus, who had piled in next to Luther on the pink pleather bench and was studying the menu, snorted so loudly with startled laughter he had to start coughing to keep from causing a scene. Luther peered down at Klaus like he’d grown a second head, and reluctantly gave him a couple stiff handed pats to the back in an effort to at least _seem_ like he was helping Klaus clear his throat.

Five was very carefully staring out the window, intently studying the license plates of the cars parked outside, trying not to burst out laughing as well. Sue him, he was old enough for Dad jokes and time-traveling word play.

Dave settled in next to Klaus, close enough to press against his shaking side, and Dave grinned at him. Klaus held up his menu in front of their faces, and he pressed a wide-smiled closed lipped kiss to the side of Dave’s neck, his eyes sparkling with humor and impossibly fond. “You are _perfect_. You know that?” Klaus whispered in his ear.

Dave, predictably, blushed a little, but with his newfound boldness, he picked Klaus back. “Yeah. Now are you gonna feed me? I _put out_ , baby, where’s my greasy morning-after breakfast, huh?”

Klaus practically whimpered, and this time his cheeks had just a hint of a blush too, beyond smitten.

Five cleared his throat in an entirely _old man_ appropriate fashion. “You two wanna keep it PG enough we don't have the other half of the restaurant that wasn’t _already_ staring at Luther staring at the rest of us?”

Klaus gave Dave a quick peck on the nose, light and playful and then pulled back and let the menu fall. “What, he’s my _fiance_ , can’t a man love on his man?”

Five cocked an eyebrow. “Sure. It’s a new era, by all means, but if I have to see any more your insipidly cute love fest in person, I _will_ puke all over you.” Five gave Klaus his most wolfish and wide kid-like cheesy grin that Klaus knew was his “ _fuck with me, I dare you_ ” face.Klaus had, uh, tried and tested true that face many time in their childhood, let’s just leave it at that.

“I mean that in the most supportive and non-homophobic way possible.” Five followed sarcastically, glancing at Dave, and then turned his menu.

Dave just looked beyond confused, and looked across the table at Diego. “The hell does _non-homo-foe-bick_ mean?” He muttered.

Diego winced, and sided eyed Klaus, who was raking greedy eyes over the waffle page, and Ben, who had taken one of the “empty” chairs at the table across from the bench. “Don’t look at me, bro, he asked you.” Ben said unhelpfully.

He’d acquired a donut from somewhere, and was eating it with relish, powdered sugar everywhere on his fingers and chin, and Diego wasn’t sure if the rest of the resturant looked over if they’d see a floating half eaten donut in the air, or if there was such a thing as _ghost donuts_.

He shook the thought off and looked back at Dave. “Look, you know those…words…that Allison got on you for calling yourself, and Klaus, earlier?”

Dave nodded, expression darkening.

“Well in the future, we call talking like that _homophobic_.”

Five didn’t look up from his menu but said, “ _Homo_ , from the greek root for _same_ , or _similar_ , and _phobic_ from the Greek for _fear_.”

Dave looked even more confused. “So, calling someone a _faggot_ is…’same fear?’”

Diego winced worse, and skittishly glanced at his own menu.“Try not to say that word so loud, especially in public, okay? It’s really not something polite to say anymore.”

Five rolled his eyes, bored. “Unless you’re British and you want a cigarette.”

Klaus’s ears practically perked up at the word cigarette, but Diego was pleased to see him shake it off and keep perusing the waffles.

“Yeah alright,” Dave conceded, “but the hell are you talking about?”

Diego swallowed, and said, “Look, calling some one a…what you said? That’s like calling a black person the N-word, you don’t _do that_.”

Dave was looking at Diego like he’d grown a third eye and started talking in tongues. “Okay, see, now, I’m gettin’ real goddamn confused.” Dave hissed, starting to look on the edge of irritated. “You wanna quit pussyfooting around whatever you want to say? Besides, the hells wrong with calling a black guy a ni—”

Klaus, mercifully, fell on the grenade Diego’d somehow pulled the pin out of in a hapless family friendly diner, and clapped a hand over Dave’s mouth, playful and laser quick.

“Oh my god, Dave they have _double chocolate chip_ waffles with _strawberries_.” Klaus squealed, gleeful, and Dave immediately dropped the thread of the previous conversation, dotingly turning his attention to Klaus, fond.

Klaus, the sly little shit, winked at a grateful Diego.

Luther, meanwhile, had been sitting carefully still, looking dead ahead past their table in a perfectly blank face that nearly screamed awkward to the high heavens.

Five rolled his eyes. “Dave, remind me to have a conversation with you _later_ about post 1968 politics. I get the feeling you weren’t much of a _hippie_.”

Dave grimaced, wrinkling his nose, but laughed. “Find me a man born in rural Missouri in the forties who _was_ , I’d be impressed. I was liberal plenty, for my raisin', even ended up in 'Frisco for a while.”

“What’s him not been a hippie got to do with not being a _racist_?” Luther finally broke, hissing and looking rather scandalized.

And there went Klaus’s valiant cover fire, _thanks Number One_. Five rolled his eyes again. It was fortunate that the diner was rather empty for the time of day, and their waitress seemed overly busy.

Dave startled at that, almost concerned, and looked over at Luther. “Look jus’ cuz I ain’t some _bead wearing_ , peace lovin’ long haired _hippie_ doesn’t mean I’m an _asshole_. We had plenty a’ colored guys in our platoon. Real solid guys, too.” Dave’s accent started to thicken, a little, now, slower and heavier, but Dave didn’t seem to notice.

Five sighed, and wondered if he could flag down their harried waitress for that coffee yet. 

Luther and Diego, meanwhile, were practically squirming in their seats, desperate to do anything but _keep talking about this_.

Dave seemed to sense he’d said something wrong, but his flare of embarrassment quickly soured into irritation. “Listen. I’m getting really tired of y’all just _saying shit_ with your eyes and soft-shoeing around what you mean like I’m some kind of backwoods _idiot_. It’s not like I grew up in the stone age, you’re not gonna, I dunno, upset me or something by telling me the future ain’t like how I grew up, no _shit it ain't_.” Dave swore, passionate and starting to heat with real anger. “I’m planning on _marrying_ your _brother_. I kind of _like_ the future.”

Diego was suddenly _fiercely_ glad Dave and Klaus had left their guns in the van. Because that tone of voice was one he knew not to turn his back on in an alley.

Five smirked a little, and caught the waitress’ eye. She gave him an odd wave, mouthing that she’d be there in just a sec.

“Look, Dave.” Five said, setting his menu down and folding his hands over it. “No one’s trying to poke fun at you, here. I get it. Perhaps for the literal _opposite_ reason, but trust me, I understand the feeling of being a man out of your own time. All these bumbling morons were _trying_ to say _too_ politely is that it’s not okay to say words like those in public anymore. Just like it’s not alright for some asshole to come up to you and Klaus on the street and call you _cocksuckers_ and beat the crap out of you, it’s also not okay for you call black people those kinds of words or think that they should use a different drinking fountain and not have all the same rights you do. _Capice_?”

Dave seemed a little startled, and then looked at Klaus.

Klaus looked up from his menu, and met Dave’s eyes, smiling with reassurance.

Dave laughed a little nervously, but met Diego’s eyes, more confident. “Alright, I mean, ain’t like I can’t agree with that. Besides,” He glared a little at Five, who quirked an eyebrow, “they repealed Jim Crow in _1965_ , you little _punk_. The Army went mixed the same year, like I said, I had _brothers_ I served with that were black, and thats what they were.” Dave’s smile was small and a little sad.

“I’m sorry if my roots show through a little in my vocabulary, I’ll keep working on it, but I meant it, I like the future. I’d just appreciate it if y’all stopped throwing around fancy-ass words like _homo-whatsit_ like I know what the hell you’re talking about.” Dave huffed.

Klaus absently reached over and fluffed a hand through Dave’s hair, smiling.

Diego glared at Klaus, trying to reign in his frustration as he hissed at him, “Yeah, thanks for contributing to this awkward train wreck of a conversation, _oh-so-progressive gender-is-bullshit Hargreeves family resident pansexual disaster_.”

Klaus winked at him again, smirking, and gave him a jaunty little boyscout salute.

Dave just looked at Klaus, and then Diego, then Five and Luther and Ben who saluted him with his donut from the far table, and back to Klaus, who winked at him as well.

Dave then very manfully sighed, and grabbed the menu from Klaus and started looking for something that sounded like enough food for a fucking bear.

“I’m not even gonna _ask_ ,” He muttered.

…

Allison was pleasantly surprised to find the Griddy’s still standing and not a smoking mass of rubble, so that was at least a good start, considering she’d left all 5 of her brothers in there unsupervised. She was even more surprised to find them amicably bickering, practically _civil_ by Hargreeves standards, over enough greasy diner food for about fifteen people. Luther seemed to be eating like he had a hollow left leg he needed to fill up, and Dave wasn’t that far behind him, and the two of them seemed to actually be talking about something with genuine good humor. She felt herself rolling her eyes and smiling as she heard Luther’s voice, animated in a way he rarely let it sound, excited and ranting.

“You’re _kidding_ ” Luther exclaimed, sounding nearly breathless with excitement, “You’re telling me you saw _Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention_ , _LIVE_?!”

Allison snorted, and hid her giggle behind her hand at Luther’s boyish grin. God she’d forgotten how sweet he could be, when he was like this.

Five and Diego were making faces like they wished for the sweet embrace of death, but Klaus was grinning back. Dave just looked put-upon and fond.

“Yeah, if you call being high as cats on reefer in what I’m pretty sure was someone’s _basement_ ‘seeing Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’ live, sure.” Dave laughed, making air quotes around it with his free hand.

Klaus fanned himself like he might swoon face first into the pile of…blackish brown sugar on his plate.

“Oh my _god_.” Luther breathed. “When did you see them?”

Dave shrugged. “Hell, I think it was 1965? Only a couple of months before I enlisted. The dude was weird as hell. I mean I guess the music was alright, but we were all gonna have a good time regardless, you know?”

Klaus sighed again, batting his eyelashes at Dave over his waffles, “Just when I think I couldn’t be more in love, why you little _minx_ you, what other dirty secrets have you been hiding from Daddy? Don’t tell me, the Stones? The Beatles? Eric Clapton?”

Dave chewed, looking thoughtful for a second. “I mean I think I saw some black guy, Jaimie? Jimmy? Jimmy,” he finalized, nodding, “Saw him play guitar in Fresno at some kinda underground thing, same year, he was pretty good I guess. I had some wild roommates in California, but I didn’t really have the money to complain.”

Luther’s jaw dropped. “You saw _Jimmi Hendrix_?!!”

Allison rolled her eyes, and sat down at the table across from Luther. “You boys seem to be getting along well.” She remarked.

Luther barely glanced at her, still stunned. “I still can’t believe that, oh my god. That is _awesome_. I hate to say I’m jealous, but yeah, I am. Wow.”

Klaus sotto-whispered, leaning into Allison’s ear. “Look at him fanboying, isn’t it _adorable_?”

Allison did laugh then, shedding the weight she’d carried coming into the restaurant after her…painful conversation with Vanya. It was good to see all her boys so…happy? Happy. Five and Diego looked irritated but it was a familiar ruse, and to see the usual brood-cloud hanging over Luther lifted was a relief.

Dave just shrugged. “I don’t get why you’re impressed, they were just a bunch of greasy losers just as stoned as the rest of us. Now, if I’d’a got to see _Hank Williams_ live, I’d get why you’d feel that way.”

Luther just looked a little confused and embarrassed for it. Then it was Dave’s turn to look utterly stunned, his mouth open in a gasp he couldn’t quite contain.

“You can’t be serious.” Dave hissed, abandoning his breakfast remains for shock. “The guy’s a _legend_!”

Luther scowled, concentrating, like if he could think hard enough he’d remember listening to the guy, but he sighed. “Nope, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.” By Luther standards, he looked practically contrite, like disappointing Dave with his musical taste was a thing he might actually care about, which considering how big of a record fan her brother was, that might be saying something. 

Dave practically choked.

Klaus patted his hand, chewing and looking very supportive. “Babe, I don’t really want to tell you this because I don’t want to break your _really impressive progress_ adapting to 2019, but modern country music is _a trash fire_ , and no one watches the Grand Ole Opry any more who isn’t _at least_ retired.”

Dave looked at Klaus just as shocked as he had the first time he’d realized Ben was a ghost.

“I _refuse_ to believe that.” Dave said vehemently, quiet and deeply offended.

“He’s not wrong.” Diego commented around a bite of his eggs and wheat toast. His body was a fucking _temple,_ goddamnit.

Not that the veritable _mountain_ of bacon in front of Luther didn’t look tempting. A man had his weaknesses.

“I…” Dave actually sounded kind of off, now, and Klaus’s teasing and good humor bled out in an instance at the note of distress in Dave’s voice.

“Hey, aww, Dave…” Klaus cooed at him.

Dave just stared, almost angrily at his food, and the look he gave Klaus was practically _heartbroken_ , and Allison felt her own heart squeeze in sympathy.

“Jesus, Lucky. I mean…I…I grew up listen’n to the Opry on the radio with my mom, in the kitchen turned up while we did the chores, an’ we used to sing along together even though I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket…It’s really gone?”

Klaus’s face spasmed in sympathetic grief. “Oh, Dave.” He murmured, hugging Dave close to his side.

Allison barely heard what Klaus whispered to him after that, but she thought she could make out “ _I promise, that feeling, that memory will never be gone_. _That’s enough, right?_ ”

Dave swallowed, and nodded. “I still can’t believe it, what the hell happened?” He said, clearly trying to shake the melancholy. Luther perked up, shrugging.

“Dunno, man,” Diego offered. “Country was never really my scene.”

Klaus tapped the forks he held, one in each hand, against his plate in a dainty clatter and clearing his throat dramatically. “Now that this quorum is officially in session, we are all agreeing _right now_ that Dave can never find out what a travesty modern music turned out to be. Starting with T-Swift.”

Five tipped his coffee slightly. Diego rolled his eyes. Luther very grimly nodded.

Dave raised his eyebrow and with very careful enunciation, said, “Luck, is this another one of those ‘ _inter-webs cat meem’_ things, cause I don’t think I get the reference.”

Allison smiled at the waitress who came up to the table, and asked for the check. The poor dear looked like she wanted to collapse in relief at not having to split the damn bill.

"Trust me, hun," She said to Dave, "You don't wanna know." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what other people's take on this angle with Dave will be, so please let me know what you think! I've got family from the south and midwest who were born around the time Dave was, and I kinda based Dave's background in that. I think for a lot of people in my generation (I'm a early 90's kid), the whole civil rights movement is just as much far removed "history" as the Vietnam war was, but for a guy like Dave, he would've grown up in the segregated south in the 40's and 50's and I imagine that that would be a whole culture shock just as much as anything else.
> 
> Also bonus points if anyone can guess what Dave's favorite musician will be here in the future?
> 
> Remember when the bullets start flying and I start churning the angst crock again how sweet and fluffy this is. Believe that it can be this fluffy again. (Teletubbies Voiceover) GROOOOUP HUG! 
> 
> Okay kids let's get ready to kick ass, lol. 🖤🦕


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow holy shit it's been a sec, huh, kids? My work life has been legit batshit insane but I got hit by the bug to write again so here we are. Like I said, I have some plot planned to finish this puppy out, so don't worry about it getting abandoned for realsies 🖤🦕

Klaus felt the jagged edge of needing a nicotine fix start to flare up, a familiar skeeze-ball of an old friend, and Dave caught him eyeing the back door just as familiar.

Dave shrugged and tossed his head in that direction looking fond. There weren’t many guys who didn’t smoke in ‘Nam, hell, they got a pack of smokes practically every other day in their ration packs, but it’d been the 60’s. “I’ll be out in a minute, Luck. Gonna use the head, wash my hands.”

Klaus grinned. “You’re a champ, babe.”

Maybe if they actually cancelled this fucking apocalypse, he’d catch Dave up on all the ‘cigarettes and cancer’ research, which he was damn sure would cause Dave to have a conniption and lead to both of them quitting cold turkey, but for now, he figured they both deserved the familiar comfort of scratching the itch.

Klaus got up out of the booth, and fished his cigarette case out of his vest pocket. “I’m gonna just go grab a quick smoke, you kids sit tight!”

The rest of his rag-tag family glared, with the exception of Five, who just sighed. Klaus was willing to bet the old bastard could probably go for a cigar himself right about now, too, for all that he couldn’t have it in public. If they made it out of this, Klaus resolved to buy him the biggest fattest cuban he could get his hands on.

Klaus snickered to himself as he shouldered through the alleyway door, imagining thirteen year old Five puffing on a Churchill cigar the size of a dildo, grimacing like a tiny Wolverine. Fucking _priceless_.

The alleyway smelled of stale smoke, dumpster, and whatever questionable other shit people had got up to back here, but Klaus was well familiar.

The Eau du Parfum of his twenties, he thought darkly, still chuckling as he fished out a cigarette, pinched it between his lips and started digging around in his pants pocket for the battered tin Zippo.

All the back alley blowjobs and quickies, just to get the money for a fix or the fix itself, back when he’d been so desperate for anything to take away the _fear_. Twenty nine year old Klaus had thought some bloody ghosts, a stable job or a trusting relationship were things to be afraid of, and the man in his place now had stared his own death in the face and _laughed_ , screamed like a banshee in the dark over the roar of machine gun fire, streaked in blood and striped like a tiger in warpaint.

There were things that deserved fear, in his life, but missing a fucking hit would never be one of them again.

Klaus struck the wheel on the zippo, catching flame and cupped it to the end of cigarette in a motion a thousand times practiced, he could practically do it with his eyes closed. The end lit, he took a long hard drag, the tip flare bright and hot, and sighed in relief. He was gonna miss these little fuckers when Dave made him quit, Klaus thought, smiling fondly.

He leaned back against the brick wall and just zoned out for a bit, taking long drags and letting the smoke drift loose without much force, watching the swirls of it rise into the sky.

The smooth oiled metal-on-metal of a handgun being cocked jolted him from his reverie in a heartbeat, and his hand flew for the gun that wasn't slung over his shoulder anymore, and he cursed.

The metal bore of it pressed hard against his temple, and he glanced left to its owner, not moving a muscle, cigarette still pinched in his grimace.

“Well, well, Hazel look who it is. Our little druggie _asshole_.” ChaCha’s voice was sticky and hot with false humor and rage, and Klaus wanted to laugh.

Hazel came out from the other side around the trash piles, gun of his own leveled, looking disgruntled and irritated. Both of them looked a fair bit more _rumpled_ than he’d remembered the night they kidnapped him, and the look of icy frigid bitch in ChaCha’s eyes was boiling now, not a trace of calm or patience she’d add the first time when she’d toyed with him, a predator so vastly outclassing its prey that it couldn’t even muster the energy to be concerned.

Klaus slowly reached up and plucked his cigarette from his mouth, and licked his lips, before taking another drag. “Hey to you assholes too. Miss me that much?”

The butt of ChaCha’s 1911 collided with his cheek bone like a sledgehammer, and Klaus staggered back, falling against the brickwork. The cigarette fell and he clenched his teeth around a hoarse shout of pain. He wiped the blood away from his nose and mouth and glared up at ChaCha. “Jesus, anger management issues much? Christ.”

Hazel’s eyes were darting nervously around the alley and towards ChaCha, clearly not wanting to upset the Alpha of his little pack, but more than a bit unsettled by her actions. “Come on, ChaCha, let’s just grab him and take him back to the motel, we can’t be causing a scene here.”

ChaCha sneered and tucked her gun into her pants to grab Klaus by the front of his vest and slam him against the brick wall. Klaus winced as his head collided with it, and he blinked dizzily at her as his vision swam. Fucking head wounds, always bleed like a bitch, he thought, nearly giggling as he felt the sticky spill of it hit the back of his collar.

“At least m’not wearin’ my _good shirt_ ,” Klaus giggled woozily.

He heard more than saw ChaCha’s huff of rage, snarling under her breath as she eased up a bit. “This fucker’s just as fucking crazy as before he stole our damn briefcase! Fuck!!”

“Damnit,” Hazel cursed, “what if he doesn’t even remember what he did with it? He probably pawned it two seconds after we lost track of him.” 

Klaus wanted to snicker, but his head was killing him and he could barely keep his eyes open, “Would’ve suited you assholes right.”

ChaCha slammed him harder into the wall, and he felt her gloved hand wrap around his throat like iron. “Where. Is. It?!”

Klaus winced, head spinning and rasping for breath, and as the edges of his vision started to get black and fuzzy, he heard the diner alleyway door creak open and saw Dave shouldering blindly past it. Klaus tried to struggle, tried to force some amount of air through his pipes past ChaCha’s grip to warn him, but he could barely even breathe.

“Hey, Luck, can I bum a smoke, I think my last pack got thrown out in the wash—” Dave’s voice died off.

ChaCha’s fist sunk into Klaus’ gut, and she tossed him writhing into the trash pile, gun drawn and on Dave in a flash. Hazel’s followed, panicked and lagging.

Dave’s hands went up slow and placating. “Hey, okay, woah…everybody take it easy. Lucky, you okay?”

Klaus coughed, and the froth of spit was more than a little pink when he wiped at it, trying to stagger back up. Hazel seemed like he couldn't decide which of them he needed to have his gun on, but ChaCha’s was dead set on Dave. “Who are you?! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t gank you for accidental collateral right the fuck now.”

Dave paled, swallowing, and kept his hands up. “Look, I’m just…I’m Klaus’s…I actually don’t know what people call it in the future?”

Klaus giggled a little, delirious, “He’s my _fiance_. Isn’t he cute?” 

That made Dave go really, really pale, and Klaus’s punch-drunk brain wasn’t really sure why, but ChaCha’s look of severe irritation took a sharp detour into stunned shock and then into _pure rage_.

Hazel’s confusion was a little slower. “Wait, did he just say _the future_?”

ChaCha’s eyes narrowed. “Why, yes, you bumbling _moron_ , that’s exactly what he said.”

“No need to be hostile, jeez, we’ve both had a rough day,” Hazel bitched under his breath.

“Which means,” ChaCha hissed slowly, “That somehow that drugged up little pain in the ass over there who stole our briefcase _used it without authorization to go back in time_ , and this jackass followed him back! Goddamn, fuck, shit, _fuck_!!” She swore vehemently.

Hazel looked almost as pale as Dave. “Ooooh, shit. Yeah, we are so screwed with Management. Oh, god, we’re gonna get fired aren’t we?”

“Forget getting fired, dipshit, they’re gonna have a burn notice out on us before the ink even dries on the fucking incident report!”

ChaCha shouted, gun flailing, “Two rounds of time travel without authorization, displacing a civilian out of their original timeline, not to mention what kind of fuckery this asshole got up to! He could have told everyone who knows what about the future!”

Klaus managed to drag himself up against the wall, panting and grimacing, “Man, come on, it’s not like I went back and killed Hitler or my dad or something. The future’s probably fine.”

ChaCha’s gun muzzle flew around at him and she screamed in frustration through her teeth before visibly collecting herself.

“Okay. Okay, you know what?” She said calmly, more to herself than anyone else, “I’m not going down like this. Hazel keep your gun on New Guy.”

Klaus saw her headed for him, and dimly realized he probably should try to fight back, but holy shit his head hurt kind of _a lot_ , and if he could just get the picture of her to stop swimming around in _triplicate_ , he’d give it a good shot, damnit.

He heard Dave’s shout as she clocked Klaus again, felt the nasty tug of duct tape around his wrists and mouth. His eyes were so heavy, shit. ChaCha pushed him over and he hit the greasy, sticky concrete hard. He couldn’t quite see what they were doing now, vision swimming so back he felt like he might be sick, but their words made him freeze.

“The junkie knows where our briefcase is, and once we get it back, it's our word against dead men, and brass will have to believe us." She hissed, "Hazel, kill the civilian, we don’t need any loose ends, especially from another fucking time line.”

ChaCha’s voice was hard and cold as it had been before, and Klaus really struggled now as she hauled him roughly to his feet, screaming through the duct tape and bucking against her grip as hard as he could manage.

His shifting vision found Dave’s pale face, and the last thing he saw before the blackness finally claimed him was Dave’s lips moving, calling after him.

 

…

Dave felt like he could barely breath around the panic building in his chest as he watched the suited woman drag a limp and nearly unconscious Klaus towards a parked car blocking the alley way. The heavy set man in front of him was way too big for Dave to be confident he could take him, not with the other woman and her much steadier gun not even 100 yards away.

The man winced, and his eyes seemed sad and shaky, but he held the gun up all the same.

“Hey look, man, for what it’s worth, I really am sorry I have to do this.” He said, and Dave shook his head.

“I—I don’t know what the hell you people want, but I promise,” Dave said, “Me and Klaus want nothin’ to do with it. It was a fucking accident!”

The other man glared, irritated again, and waved the gun at him, “Shut up! Get on your knees, asshole, let’s just get this over with, okay? Hands up!”

The feeling of powerlessness grated against Dave’s skin like barbed wire as the concrete bit through his worn pants, and fear warred hard with rage more potent than he’d felt in months.

He and Klaus had never gotten captured over enemy lines, but they’d come close, once. Some how, then, the fear had been dull, _normal_ , a familiar agony against fried nerves too burnt out to properly feel it. But now, with Lucky’s black yarn tied around his ring finger, with the future that was so good Dave hadn’t even known to hope or want for it…the fear that it was about to end before he’d even gotten to have it, sat bitter and vile in Dave’s stomach souring to rage that must’ve shown on his face.

The hitman swallowed and sighed, flinching away from meeting Dave’s eyes but kept his gun up.

“Damnit, man, a job is a job, okay, I don’t have a choice either!” the hitman hissed to Dave, trying not to draw his partner’s attention, “You think I want to do this? I’m sorry, I’m _really fucking sorry_ , but I can’t…I have to do this or it’s me and my girl instead, okay? You understand?”

Dave felt his face twist in a snarl, “You think you can just kill me, kill the man I love, over a damn _briefcase_ you fuckers lost, and what, have your own happily ever after?” He knew his voice was shaking, but now he felt something damn close to righteous fury welling up so thick he was nearly choking on it.

“You think this won’t follow you? You don’t just get to do this, wash it off you hands at the end of the day, and hold your _girl_ , and have it all be okay, Jesus, you fucking _bastard_!” Dave cried, low and furious, around the ball of tears in the back of his throat, “I fought in that hellhole jungle every day for a fucking year, trying to keep him alive, praying to God I’d still be there to hold him again in the morning and some fucking spook wouldn’t kill us both in our sleep. I carried him out of there more dead than breathing for ten miles through rougher country than you could even imagine, just for the chance he’d live to see the morning. Yeah, I _understand_. Do you?”

Dave watched through his own watery vision that the hitman’s gun was shaking, and he met his eyes, for the long second the other man could bear it before he looked away.

“I…shit, man…Jesus,” The hitman swore, “Come on, Hazel, come on…” He seemed to war with himself for a moment, and Dave had the scantest second to try and figure if he’d have enough time after he tore the gun away from this fucker to be able to cap the bitch around the corner when she came running, but it wasn't near long enough.

“You know what, fuck it.” Hazel spat, drew his gun and pulled the trigger.

 

…

The crack of a gun shot echoed into the parking lot followed shortly by the sound of car doors slamming, the squeal of burning tires, and Five’s blood ran cold, reaching for his own sidearm that he no longer wore. Damnit.

Diego met his eye for a second, clearly thinking the same thing after so many years on the police scanner, and Five swore under his breath as Diego took off for the alley before Five could even try and stop him, leaving him no choice but to tear after him on his infuriatingly shorter, scrawnier legs. He skidded to a stop in the mouth of the alley, and swore again, eyes widening at the sight of Dave sitting up against the dumpster, bleeding out of a nasty looking wound to his shoulder.

Diego came panting in like a steam engine from the other side of the alley off the road, gasping for breath. “I-I got the plate! Looked like Klaus was still in the back,” Diego panted, and then startled when he saw Dave. “Oh shit.”

Diego launched into action, and was relieved to see Dave not only breathing but conscious. Pale, sweating and in not so great shape, but by the standard of the past couple days, in decent shape.

Diego’s hands, EMT trained and beat-cop honed, were steady and quick with a blade to cut away the ruined t-shirt and tug the vest down out of the way, not flinching from the small bullet hole that was bleeding angrily from the hollow of Dave’s shoulder, just under his left collarbone. Either a good shot had clipped him from a fair distance, or someone’s aim for Dave’s heart had been _shit_. Five’s money was on the latter, knowing who was after him. “Hazel,” he hissed under his breath.

“Hey, man, you with me?” Diego asked Dave, tapping his cheek and supporting his head, feeling at the thready pulse rabbiting in Dave’s neck to reassure himself. Dave winced, and grumbled under his breath, but opened his eyes. Diego tried to give him a reassuring smile, but Dave was probably too out of it to appreciate it.

“Dave, I’ve got some QuickClot I can throw on that, okay bud? Just give me a second,” Diego said. 

Diego started rummaging through his stupid Batman harness which Five reluctantly admitted seemed a little less stupid now, and he looked up to see the others catch up to Five, who held them back from crowding Dave with a sharp gesture.

“Oh, god!” Allison cried, hand flying to her mouth in horror. Dave weakly perked up at that, surging under Diego’s hands before Diego could stop him, and he glanced over at her, wincing.

“Relax, Doll, Ah’ll be fine,” Dave croaked, while Diego’s hands tightened around his uninjured shoulder. “S’Klaus…they took Klaus, fuck, Diego, let me up we gotta go after them—”

“Hey, wow, no.” Diego chuckled weakly, shaking his head, “Easy big guy, you need to stay down and hold still. I gotta check if the bullet’s still in there, and then we’re gonna get you patched up, okay?”

Dave scowled, face pinched in determination and pain, and he gripped Diego’s wrist where it held him down tight. “S’a fucking thru’n’thru, asshole fucking missed from _point blank_. Fuckin’ greenhorn.”

Five’s laugh made Allison glare at him, beyond offended he’d find humor here, but hey, sue him. He’d told the damn Commission Hazel was way too soft for the job back when they’d set his dossier on Five’s desk back in ’48. Served them right.

Diego sighed, and squeezed Dave’s unhurt shoulder. “Hey, let’s try not to sound pissed about that, okay? You’re gonna be fine, although I’m gonna be honest, since we can’t afford to stick around for the ambulance, this stuff right here?” Diego held up the plastic packet of what looked like cement mix, “This is gonna sting like a bitch, big guy, but you’re gonna be fine, okay?”

Dave grit his teeth, snarly and pissed, “Boy, would’ja quit molly-coddlin’ me like it’s the first damn time Ah’ been shot and hurry _up_.”

Diego chuckled, punched out and a little surprised, shaking his head. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

The powder clotting agent hit the meat of the inside of Dave’s shoulder, covering the bullet hole just under his collar bone above his armpit, and everyone but Five and Diego flinched as Dave screamed through his teeth, fist lashing out to pound the metal trashcan. “Fucking _Christ!_ ”

“Yeah, like I said,” Diego muttered, unfolding a square stick-down gauze pad, hastily securing it over the wound and taping down the edges.

“Inhale,” Diego ordered, lifting Dave’s back away from the trashcan and deliberately not thinking about what kind of nasty infection was probably already soaked through from the trashcan onto the exit wound that was tacky and thick with blood against it. He gave it a quick pass over with an alcohol wipe and hoped that'd be enough. 

Dave took a shaky deep breath, and nearly screamed again when Diego emptied the rest of the powder onto the other wound, repeating the same treatment. Diego barely had the bandage edges smoothed down when he picked up the sound of a police siren in the distance. Shit.

He met Five’s eyes and Five raised an eyebrow.

“We need to go,” Diego barked. “Ally, go grab the van. Luther, help me get Dave up, we’re probably gonna need to carry hi—”

Dave was already half way on his feet, swearing and clutching the rim of the trash bin behind him, swaying dangerously.

“Shit, Dave, damn you’re a stubborn fucker.” Diego swore, rushing to steady him with an arm under his uninjured shoulder.

Dave glared, teeth clenched in pain. “They have him,” he muttered, dark and furious, “They’ve got him and they’re gonna torture him again, all cause a’ that damn briefcase. I’m not jus’ gonna lay around’n _hope_ y’all find him before it’s too late, when last time they had him, you didn’t even _notice_.”

Diego winced. Whether he could admit it to himself or not, he really hadn’t forgiven himself for that, yet. More than any of the others, he should have known, he knew Klaus’s habits better than anybody, after ten damn years of picking his brother up in a cruiser or his own car, or from the hospital or rehab. He might be a flake and junkie, but that didn’t mean when he dropped off the grid, Diego didn’t go after him.

Luther looked a bit confused, and Ben just looked so fucking _sad_.

Five snorted, irritated as always. “We don’t have time for this. Luther, take him, we need to leave, _now_.” He snapped.

“We’re goin’ after them.” Dave said, stubborn and unflinching at Five’s glare.

“ _We_ are going to get in the van and follow them, _you_ are going to lay down in the back on something soft and try not to give me a heart attack, okay?” Allison called through the rolled down window of the van as she pulled up as close as she could to the mouth of the alley. “I’ve had just about enough of having people I care about nearly dying on me, and that includes you now, too. Let us help, _trust us_ , please.”

Dave met her eyes, rage fading to exhaustion in a heartbeat, and Diego was grateful for Luther’s massive bulk when Dave’s strength finally let out and the rest of his weight settled heavy onto Diego’s shoulder.

Luther moved awkwardly, not really wanting to further hurt or jostle Dave, but managed to get a thick forearm under his shoulder and get Dave into an undignified sort of bridal-potato-sack carry that looked like it was mutually uncomfortable for everyone involved, but got the job done.

Five opened the rear gate for Luther to wedge his mass into the back, setting Dave down on a pile of old blankets and cardboard, and shut it behind them, climbing into the passenger side.

Allison adjusted the rear view mirror so that she could direct her glare to Dave, who was trying to sit back up in vain, wincing.

“We’re going to rescue Klaus, okay, he’s going to be fine, and I’m _not_ going to have to explain to him how you bled out in the back of Five’s nasty van over something this stupid. You hear me?”

Dave winced, but nodded. 

Five looked out the window to see the flash of blue and red lights turning into the parking lot. “We need to go, Diego, get in!”

Diego slammed the door shut and thumped the hood, still standing outside.

“I got the plate number of the car, and as long as Dora’s not still too pissed at me for getting her shot, last time, I’ve got some folks on the force who could still help, in case you get a dead end. I’ll cover you, get out of here,” Diego said, tapping the hood again and jogging off towards the parking lot.

Allison looked like she wanted to say something, but just huffed, and threw the van into reverse, backing out and heading down the road.

“He’ll be fine right?” Allison said to Five. Ben bit his lip, but didn’t speak, settling behind her seat on the milk crate there.

“Who, Diego?” Five asked, “Sure. If not, worst case, we bail him out tonight. He did let that cop girl friend of hers get shot, she's probably just a little bitter about it.”

“Gee, Five, that’s really reassuring,” she hissed. “And no, I meant Klaus.”

Five shrugged, but his expression smoothed out, serious and still in a way that carried too many years and lives, unsettling on his youthful face.

“He’s more valuable to them alive. They probably think he still has their Briefcase, or at least knows where it is. As long as that’s true, they won’t risk killing him.” Five said quietly.

Ben’s voice was downright frosty, biting and calm as always, “No, they’ll just torture him for something he can’t tell them, even if he wanted to. Right, Five?”

Five hid his wince. He deserved that.

Allison gasped. “Wait, _what_?!”

“Five’s old _buddies”_ Ben snapped, “from whatever Men-in-Black space-future place he worked for, when they attacked the house? They kidnapped Klaus, because they were looking for Five, and figured Klaus would either know, or he’d be good bait.”

Allison swallowed, and Luther looked pale and fragile for someone so big when she tried to find him in the rear view next to Dave. The big ape-man looked down right curled in on himself, staring at the bare metal floor as they rumbled down the road. All she could really remember from that night was the fear and the sounds of chaos, the panic of seeing them drop a  _chandelier_ on Luther and finding Mom...

Ben looked angry now, voice still quiet but carrying in the silence. “Little did they know, that Five knew they were after him, hadn’t told any of you _anything_ , and that Klaus, in Klaus’s _own words_ , was the one person in that house they could’ve taken that no one would even come looking for.”

Allison flinched, hurt by the venom in Ben’s voice, but she focused on the road. Five continued to point, with no explanation, when he wanted her to turn different directions.

“He…he didn’t mean that, did he?” Luther asked, voice heavy and a little wet.

Ben whipped around, mouth already open to snap at Number One, but Dave beat him to it, chuckling bitterly.

“He meant it. All he ever was to you was a _junkie_ , if he wasn’t home he was probably off getting high, right?”

“Just because you knew him when he was clean, know him _now_ , doesn’t mean you get what he used to be like,” Luther snapped, hurt and offended enough to get his back up, and he matched the glare Ben leveled him with. 

“What, how were we supposed to know he didn’t just head out to grab a quick fix, or get laid, or who knows what, like always!” Luther growled.

Dave struggled up to lean against the side of the van, looking like he wanted to fight for all that he was sweating and ghost-pale, shivering.

Ben glanced at him worriedly.

“Enough,” Five snapped. “It can wait for the dubious future of around tomorrow night if we're not all _dead_. This family has always been broken, and arguing about it isn’t going to get Klaus back any quicker. Luther, there’s some pain medication in the purple duffel bag in the back, Dave, take at least two.”

“I’m not taking _shit,_ ” Dave hissed. “I need my head clear. I can still shoot." 

“You are taking what I tell you to take, you stubborn little _shit_ ,” Five hissed, irritated, “Because if you think you can fire a damn 5-5-6 rifle with a hole in your shoulder like that, you’ll pass out the first time you try. Trust me, I might have a spot of experience here as well. Take the damn pain killers.”

Dave scowled, but swallowed them when Luther held the two white capsules out to him.

Allison tightened her grip on the steering wheel, feeling the creak of the smooth worn plastic and trying to soothe her nerves.

“Five…do we have any idea where we’re going?” She asked.

Five tsked. “Yes. We’re going to the middle of No-Where. I have a plan, but I’m going to need a payphone. And a lack of eye witnesses.”

“We have to _go after_ them,” Dave grumbled, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“One does not lay a trap without bait, Sergeant Katz,” Five said smugly.

“Is he always like this?” Dave muttered towards Luther, who bit his lip around an irritated, weary smile. “Unfortunately.”

“If we’re going on a road trip I want a Slurpee. And twizzlers,” Ben said simply.

Allison just sighed, and gave Ben a faint smile. “Can you even actually eat?”

Ben shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me with your plot theories kids, I love your comments and feedback as always, there's some interesting shit on the books for the next couple chapters hahaha 🖤🦕


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you crazy kids, it's been a minute! I promise this shit is getting finished someday, I swear haha. Full disclosure, I am not a medical professional and I think we can all agree that if you get shot, you should go to the hospital, right? Right. We're into the plot bit now, enjoy! 🖤🦕

It was swelteringly hot, baking off the asphalt in waves, and the van’s A/C had given up the ghost years and miles ago, just pumping out a weak stream of warm air that barely made it past the driver’s seat row. They’d popped open the trunk doors and rolled down the front windows, but even in the shade, the heat of the abandoned gas station parking lot was aggressive.

Allison was sweating through her foundation, and had unbuttoned her blouse with her feet kicked up on the dash, glaring at Five through the windshield, at where he waited by the payphone a few dozen feet away. Whoever thought road trips were a good time had clearly never been on one with a lunatic time traveling 58 year old man stuck in a child’s body, a sugar-high ghost, an ape-man who’d spent 4 years on the moon, and a Vietnam War vet hopped up on Vicodin with a gunshot wound to the chest.

She shifted her glare to the rearview mirror, where Dave was propped up against the side of the van across from Luther, who was chatting animatedly about said life on the moon, eager for his first actual interested audience since he’d got back, frankly.

His enthusiasm made Allison feel a twinge of guilt over how dismissive they’d all been of it. Sure, he could be an ass, but of the seven of them, for all the special treatment he’d gotten from Dad, he’d gotten plenty of rough deals too. Being turned into the better part of an ape against your will and exiled to the moon was no real treat either.

She sighed, and frowned at Dave. They were all sweating, except for Ben in his ever-present hoodie, go figure, but Dave looked a few shades too pale, even in the shade of the back of the van, and he had sweat through the remnants of his cutaway shirt an hour ago. The bandage Diego had hastily slapped on before they left was dark with dried and fresh blood, and there was a far away look in his eyes that he couldn’t clear, shivering, as he tried to pay attention to Luther’s story.

“Hey, Dave, are you alright?” Allison called, sitting back up.

Dave gave a grunt from the back of his throat, absentmindedly trying to shrug and wincing as it pulled at his wound. “Been better.”

Allison felt her unease growing in the pit of her stomach, heavy as a rock. “Five better hurry the hell up,” she muttered under her breath, un-clicking her seat belt and hopping out of the passenger side door.

Dave looked even worse closer up as she rounded the van, heavy shivers occasionally through his sweat-drenched frame, and his eyes were glassy. Luther glanced at her, looking concerned. “Yeah, come to think of it, you really don’t look so hot, bud,” he said.

Dave grunted again, trying to sit up more. “Th’fuck’szat s’posed ta mean?” He slurred, and Allison met Luther’s eyes, matching his concern.

“Dave, I think we need to get you lying down, okay?” She said, speaking slowly and forcing her voice to stay clam for all that her nerves were spiked to hell.

Allison motioned for Luther to help her, and with a dangerous rocking creak from the van’s springs he kneeled up to reach over and try and get Dave to slump back down on the greasy packing blanket that was covering the van’s corrugated floor.

Luther’s breath caught, eyes wide when he glanced back at Allison. “Ally, he’s burning up!”

Ben appeared behind him, kneeling beside him. “If he’s got a fever, it’s probably a localized infection…wound might be starting to get septic.”

The pair looked up from Dave, surprised. Ben shrugged, grim smile on his face. “What? You spend 24-7 following Klaus around, you pick up some stuff off the EMT’s, okay?”

“Shit.” Allison swore under her breath, and looked around the van for Five. Five looked up from his nails, leaning against the payphone, and lifted an eyebrow.

He held up a solitary finger, an unspoken, irritated _wait_ , and Allison swore again.

“He’s going to need to go to the hospital, isn’t he?” Luther asked.

Allison nodded grimly.

Dave gave a weak, delirious snort. “M’fine, doll.”

Allison leaned over Dave, so that he could see her face as she offered him a weak smile. “You, mister, are definitely not fine. Luther, grab those water bottles, we need to try and bring his fever down. Dave, I want you to keep looking at me, and try to stay awake, okay? I really don’t want to explain to Klaus how Five and whatever stupid ass _plan_ he came up with killed his fiance, because I am really looking forward to that wedding.”

Dave laughed, shaky in his chest but genuine, and he smiled at her. “You’re gonna be a real pretty…maid of honor…”

She gave Dave a little poke to his uninjured shoulder, shaking her head. “Please, Dave, you and I both know Ben will be Klaus’ maid of Honor, hun.”

Ben snorted. “ _Gentleman of Honor_ , thank you.”

Dave smiled, and he weakly jerked his hand over to paw at hers, giving it a squeeze. “I wasn’t talkin’ bout Klaus, doll.”

Allison bit her lip, feeling the tears well up a little in the back of her throat, “Dave, if we all live through this, I would be over the goddamn moon to be your Maid of Honor, you don’t even have to ask. But I need you to live through this, okay, I mean it.”

Luther pressed the tepid water bottle against her shoulder to catch her attention. “I’m just glad neither of you asked me. I look like a stuffed monkey in a suit, seriously.”

Ben and Allison stared at him, not sure if they were allowed to laugh or not, but Luther broke the spell by grinning at them both, boyish and silly, and they both dissolved into giggles, Allison's more polite than Ben's, while Luther turned his attentions to Dave, soaking rags with water and placing them over Dave’s skin.

 

Five finally ended his phone call, and appeared behind Allison, frowning at Dave. “Well, you’re looking…great.”

Dave weakly made a thumbs up, without lifting his arm.

Allison glared at Five, mothering instincts flaring up. “Five, we need to call this off. Dave’s burning up, Ben says his wound’s probably infected, and with how hot it is, there’s no way—”

Five’s face twisted in a sneer, hands in his pockets and far too unruffled for how fucking hot it was. “Not a chance,” he said sharply, “Hazel and ChaCha are on their way now, the plan’s already in motion. Dave will be fine, just give him another pill, he’s tough.”

“It’s not a question of how _tough_ he is, Five! He could be _dying_ , you can’t just pop a pill and _tough out_ total systemic shock! He was _shot_ for Godsakes.” Allison shouted.

Five’s eyes lit up in anger, cool demeanor evaporating. “Do you have any idea how big the stakes are right now? The entire _world_ will die tomorrow if we don’t pull this off.”

“So what,” Allison hissed, climbing out of the van and gesturing wildly, “you think if we save the world that, what, Dave’s life is acceptable collateral? Fuck you, Five, you know what, I’ve had it with you and your little super-genius ‘emotions are useless’ robot routine! You think that tomorrow, if the world’s still standing, and I have to tell Klaus you let Dave die to do it, that he’ll ever forgive you for it? Hell, _I_ never will.”

Five flushed with fury, and opened his mouth to retort, but Allison shoved at him, just as furious, and cut him off.

“What the fuck’s the point in saving the world if the people I love that are half the reason it’s _worth_ saving, aren’t there to see it? Huh?” Allison shouted, “We’re your _family_ , you little—!”

“Allison, shut the fuck up, you—” Five snarled.

“Guys!!” Ben’s voice, urgent and a little shaky, cut through the shouting. Their attention swung back to where Ben was crouched next to Dave, who had gone deathly pale and was shivering violently, nearly seizing with it.

“Shit,” Five swore, hopping into the van and feeling for Dave’s pulse against his neck. Dave’s fever-hot skin was starting to out pace the sweat, and his pulse was jack-rabbiting, lurching way too fast under Five’s grip. “ _Shit_ , he’s going into shock. Fuck, we don’t have time for this!”

Dave’s hand lashed out wildly, gripping Five by the front of his uniform jacket. “Five…do it.” Dave’s stutter was weak, barely more than a rasp.

Five blinked, squeezing Dave’s wrist to get him to release, and Allison and Luther stared at him.

Luther’s voice was lethal, dark and hard. “Five, _no_.”

“Now wait a minute, do _what_?” Allison asked, confused, “Do what, Five? What the hell is he saying?”

Luther’s face hardened even more in rage. “The serum. That’s what he means, right?”

Five’s eyes flicked back to Luther, unimpressed. “Yes.”

Allison gasped. “Five, _no_ , oh my god, are you insane? We don’t even know what it’s done to Klaus, and he already _had_ powers. What if it kills him!?”

“What if we do nothing?” Ben said softly, face sad and tired. “He’s dying, Ally. We already fucked this up…might be the only way we have to fix it.”

“No, just…no! I won’t _fucking_ let you,” Luther growled, forcing himself up out of the van and forcing Five to step back, menacing. “You don’t know what it could do to him, I won—”

“S’fine…I…” Dave called weakly. “Ah’ll take…that risk.”

Allison’s heart squeezed in her chest, and she forced Dave to look up at her. “Dave, no, okay, it’s gonna be fine, we’ll get you to the hospital, there’s no need to do anything so—”

“Brave?” Dave offered, smiling just a little, eyes nearly glazed over with the pain and fever.

“ _Stupid_.” Allison declared, fond and bittersweet.

“s’okay, doll….Ah’ve been…mean’n ta ask…tired’a bein’ _weak_.” Dave struggled to speak, shivering hard.

“Please, there’s not a weak bone in your whole body, soldier, I mean it!” Allison insisted, scowling at him.

Dave shook his head, “In th’alley…when they t-took Klaus?…Couldn’t stop ‘em...Need to be somethin’ _more_ , Ally…don’ ever wanna…feel that way again.”

The others grew quiet at that, staring down at the former soldier. Five cleared his throat, rage bleeding out.

“Dave, there’s no guarantee the serum even works on normal humans…even if it did, it’s a roll of the dice what kind of mutation you could get out of it, and there’s no way to even know if it’d be something that would ever help you.” Five said.

Dave swallowed, and closed his eyes. “I know. Do it.”

Five seemed to still for a moment, introspective, and Luther looked nearly in pain, glancing over his shoulder at Dave.

“You don’t know what you’re agreeing to!” Luther snapped, shuddering, “You think you could live with it, if you ended up some kind of ugly freak like me, huh?”

Allison gasped, hand flying to her mouth. “Luther, no! You’re not—”

“I am! Ally, don’t _even_ , okay. Dave, listen to me! Everywhere I go? People stare at me. Parents walking their little kids will pull them away from me, like I’m some kind of monster, and the first girl who ever fucking saw me naked thought I was some kind of animal freak too. Trust me, please, you _don’t want this_.” Luther's voice broke, wobbling dangerously. 

Ben sighed, and Allison flinched. Five just kept staring at Dave, lost in thought.

“Just…let Five portal you to the hospital,--" Five's eyes snapped up, denial already ready, but Luther glared back just as hard, "They can patch you up and we’ll get Klaus back and stop the apocalypse, and everything will be fine. Okay?” Luther said, looking years older.

Dave opened his eyes and looked past Luther’s bulk to meet Five’s, still shaking and covered in sweat. “No.”

“Dave, _please_ , just listen to Luther,” Allison pleaded.

“I said _no_!” Dave barked, banging his fist on the metal floor of the van. “You…I would give anything…do anything…to protect him. D-don’t you fucking get it? This s-shit’s jus’ gonna…keep happenin’…cause of his powers, n’all of yours…an’ I can’t protect him…I know what I’m asking for.”

Five seemed to shake out of his thoughts, finally, and nodded, moving towards Luther, who swore, throwing an arm in front of him to block his path.

“Luther, move, he’s made up his mind.” Five snapped.

Luther growled, “He’s _out_ of his damn mind on pain killers and he’s going into shock, I’m not letting you do this.”

“Luther…” Allison trailed off, not sure what to say, not sure even what side she was on.

Dave coughed, ragged and wet, and shook, but his eyes gleamed with clarity when he looked back at Five. “Boy, I said _do it_ ,” He rasped.

Five phased out and popped back in past Luther, who saw it coming but not fast enough, whipping around to grab at Five. A gleaming milk white syringe of serum was in Five’s hand, and without blinking he slammed the needle into Dave’s chest and pushed down the plunger.

…

For a long moment everyone just froze, unable to react or believe what was happening in front of them, shock uninterrupted by even the sound of Dave’s breathing, which for one agonizing second completely stopped.

His chest seized up off the floor of the van with a huge, ragged gasp, eyes wide, and then he started screaming.

Luther pushed Five out of the way to try and hold him down as Dave thrashed in agony, screaming bloody murder until his voice cracked and went breathless and the fight finally went out of him.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Five swore under his breath. Allison glared at him, enraged, before turning her focus back to Dave, whose ragged breathing was starting to level out again, panting deep and heavy, still shaking.

“Dave? Dave, can you hear me?” Allison asked, touching his cheek and wiping some of the sweat soaked strands of hair out of his face. Dave nodded weakly, eyes still screwed shut but the tension starting to bleed back out.

Luther eased up on his restraining hold, and Allison bit her lip, watching how Luther’s hands shook, the way his eyes were fixed on Dave as if he was waiting...God there was just _never-ending_ trauma to unpack in this family, wasn’t there?

“Can you open your eyes for me?” Allison asked.

Dave’s eyelids gradually blinked open, glazed over and gradually coming into focus. “Hey, doll.” Dave rasped.

Allison let out a lungful of air in a relieved sigh. “Oh my god, I could choke the hell out of you.” She mumbled.

Dave must’vestill caught it, because he laughed a little under his breath.

“How’re you feeling?” Five asked, crisp, like he was barking out orders.

“Like Ah got hit by an eighteen wheeler, ‘er something,” Dave said, chuckling, “Tha’s some powerful stuff you got there.”

Five shrugged, and raised an eyebrow at Luther as though to say _see, he’s fine_ , but Luther glowered back, simmering with hurt and rage still. Luther gave one last weary glance at Dave’s prone form and shook his head, climbing back out of the van.

Ben and Allison watched him go, and glanced at each other. Unspoken, Allison sighed, and followed after him.

Rolling his eyes, Five climbed up next to Dave. “Let’s see what we’re working with, shall we?”

Five callously peeled up the edges of the tape around the bandages, and quickly pulled the bandage up around the edge, testing the pull for scabbing or any kind of clotting stuck to it. The mass of ragged bloody tissue and clot sloughed off with the bandage in a quick tug, leaving behind it a fresh, shiny pink scar.

Ben whistled. “Damn.”

“The extreme healing factor upon injection may be worth its own investigation,” Five remarked, clearly impressed as well. “That was never something I designed for, honestly, it’s more of an unexpected side effect.”

“Hell of a side effect,” Ben commented.

Five shrugged, discarding the bandage and probing roughly at the wound scar, causing Dave to wince. “Easy, would'ja!”

Five withdrew his hand unfazed, clearly pleased with himself. “Well. Now it’s time for the interesting part…what kind of mutation might you have lurking un-evolved in your genes, Sergeant Katz? I suppose we’ll find out. Any unusual…other symptoms? Let’s get you up.”

Dave waved off his hand and forced himself up, wincing but already recovering his strength. “Dunno…kinda feels like I’ve got this, mm, itch? Deep in, almost like it’s on my damn shoulder blades way under my skin.” Dave squirmed, scrubbing his back up against the wall of the van a bit, grimacing.

“It’s not bad, just, I dunno, _there_.”

Five made a curious noise in the back of his throat, and pulled at Dave’s shoulder to try and get him to sit up off further so that he could see the area.

Nothing but bare, sweat soaked skin greeted him. Five shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Well at least so far it’s nothing grotesque or particularly odd.”

Ben winced. Leave it to Five to give the least reassuring reassurance ever.

Dave didn’t seem too concerned. “I won’t regret it.”

“Tell me that again when it turns out you grow a second set of eyes or piss radioactive acid, or something.” Five replied cheerfully.

“Or when giant tentacle monsters burst out of a portal in your stomach.” Ben snapped, false cheerful, “Or when you can’t sleep without half a gram of sedatives in your blood stream because the spirits of the dead scream in your ears and haunt your every moment.”

Dave’s expression darkened, but he didn’t flinch.

Ben sighed. “But of all the reasons to do it…I suppose you had a good one.”

Five snorted, “Nothing says, ‘Welcome to the Hargreeves Family’ for real like an unpredictable, probably largely useless and terrifying mutation, right?”

Dave smiled, exhausted. “Hell of an early wedding present.”

“Klaus is gonna fliiiiiip.” Ben sing-songed, unwrapping another lollipop and sticking it in his mouth.

“God, yeah, he’s gonna kill me.” Dave agreed, still smiling.

Five glanced at his watch, and grinned, wolfish. “Ah, perfect timing. Our guests have arrived.”

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any guesses on what could be in store for Dave? Muahaha. Also, I secretly feel like as much as Luther is an emotionally stunted dick alot of the series, that he deserves some love and appreciation too. Just, you know, not from his fucking sister. 🖤🦕 Comments are love!!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catching up with Diego and Patch, because they're adorable. I enjoyed all your comments, darlings 🖤🦕

“Patch! Hey, uh, you’re looking, uh—” Diego called over to the cop climbing out of the black and white with a seriously unimpressed look on her face.

“Cut the crap, Hargreeves, what the hell are you doing here?” Eudora glared at him, fiercely, and very deliberately didn’t take her hand off the handle of her gun. 

Diego swallowed, hands up in appeasement. “Look, okay, I can explain.”

He winced when she rolled her eyes, but at least she’d relaxed her stance and let her hand drop. He lowered his too, and tried to give her a smile.

“Save it.” She huffed, shaking her head, “I already know you’re involved, you know how this goes, Diego. You’re coming with me back to the station.”

“Am I riding in the front or the back?” Diego tried to tease.

He grinned when she hid a smile, turning away with a scoff. “Depends. That ‘explanation’ of yours include why I walked in on two professional hitmen a couple days ago, and _got shot at_ , with no back up? I was lucky I got away with just a graze.”

Diego winced, but nodded and followed her towards her cruiser, and muttered to himself, “Yeah…but I have a feeling you’re not going to believe me.”

Eudora barked a couple orders at the other cops, who were interviewing their waitress from earlier, among others, and tagging off the alley for ballistics.

“Get in, idiot,” Eudora snapped at him over the hood and climbed in, starting the cruiser back up.

Diego spared a glance in the direction of the tire tracks, and hoped that Five knew what he was doing.

…

The drive back to the station was awkward and quiet for the first few minutes, Eudora very pointedly staring out the window and not saying a thing.

Diego wanted to squirm in his seat and practically grovel, but was doing his best to keep a hold of the rest of his dignity.

He sighed.

“I’m waiting.” Eudora said flatly.

Diego winced, and bit his lip. “Eudora, look, I’m so sorry, I—”

“That’s not an _explanation_ , Hargreeves,” she hissed, still staring out the window.

“I know, but I figured I’d start with that at least.” Diego said softy.

“I don’t want an apology.” Eudora’s voice was cold and angrier than he ever thought he’d heard it, and it made Diego’s chest feel too tight.

“I want you to explain how _my partner_ let me walk into a fucking  _setup_ with no intel and no backup, Diego. I…” She swallowed, clearly composing herself, “I trusted you! I trusted you and the one time I cave and agree to do it your way, it blows up in my damn face!”

Diego flinched, shoulders curling in a little. “God, D-d-dora, I d-d-d-idn’t know, I sw-s-swe—Fuck!” He cursed as he choked his way through the stutter, feeling all of 5 years old all over again, afraid to even speak for fear of how mangled the words could get, betrayed by his own body, shame thick and cloying in the back of his throat.

Dad’s face was there, looming impossibly tall and glaring down, disgusted. _Open your mouth and speak, Number 2. No one will take you seriously if you stammer like some kind of fool._

The car slowed to a stop at the light, Eudora’s hands tight on the steering wheel, but she looked over at him. Diego felt her eyes on him but he couldn’t even bring himself to look up.

“I swe-we-ss-…Swe-ar, I di-di-didn’t _know_.” Diego forced out.

Eudora sighed, shifting and reaccelerating, and looked back over at him again. “Hey, Diego? Look at me,” she said softly.

Diego winced, but looked up and over. Eudora’s harsh expression had softened, and her smile was tired but warm.

“ _Breathe_ , okay? I’m upset, but clearly so are you. I haven’t heard you stutter this bad since our first week as rookies.”

Diego raked a hand over his face, shame white hot and probably pink up to his ears. He didn’t even try and talk, not trusting his voice not to betray him.

She laughed, and elbowed him, teasing. “Remember our second day on the beat, that afternoon? You almost beat the shit out of that little gangbanger punk who started making fun of your voice, remember?”

Diego chuckled, but a little of the tight ball of tension eased. “M-mostly re-mem-m-ber the after a-act-action report.”

Eudora snorted, grinning. “God, Lieu blew a stack! Priceless, man, he still tells that story, every quarter to the new rookies, you know that?”

Diego laughed, shaking his head. “You’re k-kidding.”

“I, one hundred percent, am not.” Eudora agreed, still smiling, and she reached over to thump him upside the head, barely hard enough to sting, and Diego squawked, predictably indignant. “Better?” She asked.

Diego nodded, still a little shaky but no where near the horrible wad of tension that had welled up earlier.

“Yeah.” He agreed.

She turned down a familiar street, and clicked over her blinker, shifting lanes. “Good. I could go for some _Frankie’s_ , you?”

Diego felt like every scrap of affection he had for this beautiful, terrifyingly competent woman had just piled up in the back of his throat, heavy and overwhelming.

“I ate bre-e-akfast already.” He said, trying for his usual assertiveness.

She laughed. “Hey, I said I was taking you back to the station. A little drive thru stop off on the way there never hurt anyone, right? Besides, this is lunch. You’re too skinny. Frankie’s’ll fix you right up.”

“Hurt’s my fucking waistline,” Diego muttered, loud enough to carry.

Eudora scoffed, fake offended, and smacked his shoulder. “Every cop in the city knows calories from Frankie’s Burgers and Shakes are _food of the gods_ , and evaporate straight from your stomach to heaven, don’t you give me any of that _my body is a temple_ schtick, boy. I know you had maybe a cup of rolled damn oats for breakfast anyway. You’re not getting out of this, its tradition. I do my job and am amazing, you do something reckless and fucking stupid, I save the day, we get Frankie’s on the way back to the station to console ourselves before Lieu’s inevitable tongue lashing. It’s our thing.”

Diego chuckled, shaking his head as they pulled up to the mic.

Eudora rolled down the window, still grinning.

“Welcome to Frankie’s Drive-Thru, what can I get you?”

“Hey, Al, it’s Unit 41, can we get our usual?” Eudora shouted at the box.

The mic clicked over withs static and background noise for a second, and then the bored voice replied in the same rapid monotone, “Yeah, so that’ll be a Double Cheesie with extra bacon, extra onion, mayo and secret sauce, a Chick Flick with extra veg and no mustard, two fries, a diet Coke, and a Chocolate Shake, extra cookie crunch. $14.50. Want it on your tab?”

“Nah, cash. Thanks, Al,” Eudora replied, and leaned back into the car to drive up to the window around the corner. “You’re buying, Trust Fund.” She said holding her hand out.

Diego laughed, louder and looser this time, and smiled broadly at her. “God, I missed this.”

He fished out a twenty dollar bill and tried not think about how _God, I love you_ had been right on the tip of his tongue instead.

“Dora? Thanks,” He said, “For giving me a chance.”

Eudora gave a sloppy little salute back, “Hey, what are partners for?Besides, ‘a’ chance? Please, what’re we on, Chance number 542? 43? You’re way past one, Rambo.”

“I hate you,” he huffed, kidding.

“You love me” she teased, “Also, that ‘chance’ doesn’t even come _close_ to extending past professional, boy. You have _so_ much more groveling to do.”

Diego was pretty sure if he were a dog, his tail would be wagging shameless fast.

“I’ve still got a _chance_?!” He whimpered, and threw a hand over his face in embarrassment.

Eudora rolled her eyes like she could see that tail wagging, but she was still smiling as the window slid open and she turned her attention to the lanky, familiar deadbeat.

“Fourteen fifty,” Al intoned, holding the bulging, greasy paper bag.

Eudora handed over the money and took the bag, then the drinks, and winked at Al. “Keep the change, hon. Tell Frankie Station Two-Five appreciates the service he provides the force, as always.”

The bored man glanced down at the twenty and shrugged, “He knows.”

Diego was pretty sure that the downtown cops of District Two-Five single handedly had gotten Frankie’s through the recession, but hey.

Eudora laughed, and handed Diego the bag, and the chocolate shake.

“I can feel my arteries clogging.” He whined.

“I can feel you _bitching_ in my _soul_ , Diego, how dare you malign the name of Frankie’s with such _treason_.” She sing-songed back, “Now eat your food, you bitching whiner who whines and secretly _loves chocolate and fried chicken_ , you little shit.”

Yeup, Diego thought, I’m done, I’m screwed, I love her.

There was probably a lot to unpack there that his type was a fiesty, dominant latina who bossed him around and nagged him into eating soul-food, but he was very, _very firmly_ ignoring that, thanks.

…

Eudora sat down in her chair at the station with a loud gusty sigh, and allowed herself to fully sprawl back into the dilapidated wheelie chair for a long moment before diving into the Frankie’s bag. They’d gotten the usual share of catcalls and howling from the boys on the way in, both for not getting _them_ Frankies, and for their continued “consorting” as Lieutenant Michaels irritatedly referred to it as. After Diego’d left the force, everyone and their mother had known about it when he came crawling back, begging for case scraps at Eudora’s doorstep like some kind of sad eyed puppy dog, and like the sucker she was, she kept feeding him, even after she'd left the beat and earned her detective shield.

Her relationship with her old partner was a lot of things.

Complicated, frustrating, headache inducing and sometimes enraging, but she knew enough about his past, and his present, to _know_ him, and there wasn’t a bad bone in his body.

 _Well, except for maybe one,_ she thought, pulling out her cheeseburger and leering over at Diego’s ass in that tight little angry Batman wannabe outfit of his.

 _Down, girl_.

“Okay, let’s get down to business,” she barked, unwrapping the monstrous grease laden bacon cheeseburger out on the desk and tucking in with relish.

Diego started a bit, and sat down across from her. “Where do you wanna start? The hitmen, or what happened at the diner?”

She glared, unimpressed, and finished chewing. “How about you start at the actual beginning? Because my gut tells me somehow these stories may be connected.”

Diego winced. At least ‘Dora’s desk was in the back corner, quiet and mostly out of hearing range of the rest of the floor.

“Okay, so when you showed up at the motel, what did you find at the scene?” he asked.

She swallowed her bite. “Couple cars in the parking lot, nothing out of the ordinary. I tried to get the front desk manager to work with me, but he had shady and ‘I don’t work with _cops_ ’ written all over him.”

Eudora shrugged, “I let him think he’d blown me off, waited till he left and then called you.”

Diego winced, and she rolled her eyes, taking another bite. “Quit that shit,” she garbled out around her mouthful, and Diego’s heart clenched in fondness when she caught herself and flushed just a little, covering her mouth and working to get the bite down before continuing.

“Look, Diego, you know how I get when I get a bad feeling, we both know I wasn’t going to wait for backup. I’m sorry I yelled, earlier. Lieu just debriefed me on that whole ball of shit this morning and he pretty much said all the shit I said to you and worse, and then to see you right there, first call of the day after no word since…?” She trailed off, glaring at her food and setting it down half eaten.

“I was right behind you, maybe ten minutes out,” Diego said, “By the time I got there, there was already what felt like half the station crawling all over the parking lot. I heard them call _officer down_ over the radio, Dora… I th-t-thought you were dead.”

Eudora froze, and looked up at him in shock. “What?”

Diego met her gaze, smiling sadly. “I was pretty shook up, and all I could think about was how it was my fault, and how I’d got you k-killed.”

She winced, and shook her head, “I bled a lot at the scene.”

“Yeah.” Diego murmured. “I…I found out they’d taken you in the bus to St. Mary’s, but not in what shape, and once I found out you were gonna be fine I just…I couldn’t get involved any more, Dora, I still shouldn’t. It was _my fault_ you were there that night, with no idea what you were getting into, and I almost got you _killed_ , and—”

Eudora huffed, and glared at him fondly, eyes cutting him right to the core. “Diego, accidents happen. Sometimes we make mistakes, underestimate the threat, get bad intel, _whatever_ , it happens. You know that. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it _was_!” Diego snapped, practically hissing under his breath.

“Well if it was, then I don’t blame you, and I’ve already forgiven you for it.” She said simply, almost nonchalant, and the loss of the wind in his sails left Diego almost breathless with shock, and a budding feeling of relief.

“You can’t just—” He rasped in frustration, leaping up out of his chair, and she held up a finger in an unspoken _wait_ until he gradually sank back down in confusion.

She slowly took a monstrous, unladylike bite of burger, set it down and chewed, pretending to be in deep though for an agonizing wait while keeping the finger up and pointed at Diego, threatening if he so much as twitched like he was going to continue ranting.

She swallowed, wiped her mouth, wiped her fingers, and steepled them in front of her, elbows on the desk.

“Listen to me very carefully, _Diego Hargreeves_ , if you think you can tell me what I _can_ or _can’t_ do, you can leave my office _right goddamn now_ before I _make_ you leave. And if I _make you leave_ you’ll be leaving limping. Are we clear?” Eudora was treading the edge of a quiet rage, under the deceptive frosting light tone of her voice, and Diego went a few shades paler, sitting up taller in his seat subconsciously.

“Yes, ma’am.” Diego said, dead serious.

“Good.” She beamed at him, false cheerful, “Now that that’s settled, let me reiterate. _I’m over it_ , and it wasn’t your fault, I forgive you, let’s move on. The hitmen, who are they?”

Diego swallowed, and nodded. “Don’t know their real names. Codenames are Hazel and ChaCha.”

Eudora continued eating, and made a face. “Wow. That explains the clowny animal masks and the Men-In-Black get up.”

Diego shrugged. “They attacked the Umbrella Academy, night before they attacked you. Brought a lot of firepower, but we held them off. Five, you remember about him?”

“The one who disappeared when you guys were 13?” Eudora asked.

“Yeah, so he’s back. He time travelled…uh…to the future, where apparently everyone had died in some kind of apocalypse. He was there for like, 45 years, until he figured out how to get back, to warn us…to save the world, I guess.” Diego looked up, aware of how crazy that sounded, but Eudora just looked genuinely contemplative.

“Well shit.” She said when she finished the last bite, balling up the wrapper.

“I kind of figured you’d be more, uh, surprised?” Diego said.

“You grew up in a family of superheroes, Diego, I feel like this is pretty par for the course.” She said non-plussed, “Still doesn’t explain why our favorite little rehab-wonder was there. He doesn’t really seem like the type you’d put on an away team to solve that kind of problem solo, by himself.”

Diego chuckled, shaking his head. “Klaus? You'd be surprised, these days...The hitmen took him hostage. Thought he’d know where Five was, on account of how, you know, they were sent by some kind of ‘outside of space-time’ committee of other time-travelling assholes, who apparently Five used to work for.”

Eudora stared at him, and blinked, in the sudden awkward silence. “Oh-kay. Wow. I’m beginning to see why you and Ziggy Stardust left the family young.”

“Yeah,” Diego agreed, “It’s a little much sometimes. A lot of the time. Five showed up out of some kind of portal, about a week ago, spouting off about some kind of apocalypse that was going to happen in 8 days, and all this other cryptic shit—”

“So…” Eudora interrupted, “Let me get this straight. Your kid brother who went to the future, which sucked, is back here in the present to keep the shit from hitting the fan. Right?”

“Right.” Diego agreed.

“Men in Black clowns show up to kill Five? To what, _make sure_ the apocalypse goes on with out a hitch?” She asked, incredulous.

Diego grunted, “Five never really explained that one.”

“Okay,” Eudora closed her eyes, making her adorable wading-through-bullshit concentration-slash-patience face did frankly obscene things to Diego’s heartrate.

“Okay, so let’s just assume whatever asshole company these clowns work for is evil incarnate, instead of motivated by any normal things like money, power, who knows. Corporation of Evil sends hitmen Thing One and Thing Two to kill Five, who is trying to save the world…from them, but also from whatever I guess already causes the apocalypse?”

“Sure. For the record, all of us but Five are pretty much just about as confused as you are.” Diego added.

“Helpful.” She drawled, and sighed. “They can’t find Five when they go to the Umbrella Academy. So they kidnap one of the available other siblings, to presumably torture for information on Five’s whereabouts. How’m I tracking?”

Diego nodded.

“Awesome.” Eudora sprawled back in her chair, kicking her feet up on the filing cabinet, and started working over the stress ball on her desk.

“Okay. So they have Klaus, they take him back to the motel. They torture him, he doesn’t know anything, he’s probably high and even if he didn’t, he’s probably got nothing on Five, anyhow. Then what?”

Diego sighed, “Not much to tell after that, really, I got back to the mansion and found out what happened, and tried to track them down. Got ahold of you. You know the rest of that…”

“Except for what happened at Griddy’s Diner this morning, and what that has to do with all this.” She agreed, throwing the stress ball back and forth, and then catching it.

“We were out for a, uh, family brunch,” Diego started lamely, and Eudora glared at him.

“Bullshit, Diego—” She started, and he coughed around a laugh, chuckling, “Yeah I know how that sounds, it was Klaus’s idea, okay? We were trying to figure out what to do next, Griddy’s is an old stomping ground for us…we used to hold a lot of, uh, really important Umbrella Academy meetings there, when we could get away from Dad _.”_

At the mention of the Hargreeves patriarch, Eudora eased off, frowning a little.

“Anyway.” Diego charged on, “Klaus goes out for a smoke break and Dave follows after him, we’re all leaving to go get the van, and then I hear a gunshot from the alley, and tires squealing. Older model, grey sedan, I’ve got the plate. The hitmen were driving, and I saw Klaus in the back.”

He fishes out the scrap of paper he’d jotted it down on, and Eudora sprang forward out of her chair to snatch it. “Eyes like a hawk. I knew I missed you on the beat for something,” she teased.

She stood up, and whipped around, “Oy, Ramirez! Get your lazy ass over here, I need you to run a plate for me! ASAP!”

Ramirez’s whine went up along with a chorus of whoops and catcalls, and a beleaguered Ramirez wandered over and collected the scrap from Eudora along with the vehicle description and trudged off.

She turned back to Diego, expression serious. “If your brother’s been shot, I doubt his former torturers have much interest in keeping him alive, if he even still is,” Eudora winced, “But that little bastards pulled through worse, we’ve got a chance.”

Diego shook his head. “They shot Dave, not Klaus, thankfully. He’s with Five and the others now, they’ll keep him patched up.”

Eudora’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Who’s Dave?”

Diego looked pained. “Well..”

“Yo, Dora—” Ramirez called across the floor.

“That’s Detective Patch to you, rookie!” Eudora hollered back, grinning at the jeers that followed.

“Yo, Detective Patch,” Ramirez called again in the same casual voice, causing Eudora to meet Diego’s eyes with a shared smile, and a look that said _Rookies, right_?

“I got a hit on that plate! It’s stolen, no ID, but units rolling through Uptown when I put it out on the radio just spotted it at that shitty motel on Broadview, you know the pay-per-hour place with the Flamingo sign out front?”

Eudora grinned, and stood up, grabbing her shoulder holster and starting to collect the rest of her gear.

“Deja vu.” Diego said quietly, grinning back.

“This time, Rambo, we do it _my way_.” Eudora said, smirking.

Diego followed after her as she stormed out of the station, hot on her tail.

“Yes _ma’am_ ,” he muttered under his breath, uncomfortably turned on.

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang tight, Klaus, help is on the way! Also, slogging through plot is hard, can we get back to the porn already? hahaha. As always, comments are love, 🖤🦕


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one gets a little weird and dark, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it's gonna get better soon!   
> 🖤🦕

Klaus manically, perversely wanted to laugh, because really, it was one thing to bum a cigarette off of a guy, and another thing entirely to steal his whole pack, kidnap him,  _again_ , duct tape him to a chair, _again_ , and entertain yourself by snuffing out said cigarette butts on the guy’s bare skin.

Fucking _rude_.

Klaus felt the giggle spill up from his gut like acid, uncontrollable, because what else was there, now?

Objectively, he knew that he had some broken ribs and that he was concussed to all hell, but all he felt was just this sick, sluggish _emptiness_.

 _Dave was gone_. They’d killed him. He’d heard the gunshot, felt it like it’d ripped through him instead.

Whatever scrap of sanity he hadn’t baked out of his fucked up head with all the drugs and the ghosts had fractured at the sound of it, and all that was left now was the hollow place in him that had been blissfully warm for a while. Klaus welcomed the feeling like an old friend, like the familiar comedown from taking a stronger drug you’d never tried, where the high was _unreal_ and so perfect, only to leave you crashing back into reality in some kind of sick lurch that practically gave a guy whiplash. _The bigger the high, the worse the withdrawal_ , as they always said.

The world could burn down around him now, watch him _cry about it_ , he was going down bathed in these bastards’ blood and _laughing_ like a fucking hyena. 

…

Hazel grimaced at the sight of the guy they’d taken hostage for the second time, who looked like he was, well, batshit insane. Worse than the first time, and that was saying something considering how many baggies of pills they’d found on the guy.

“Jesus, ChaCha, what’d you do to him?” He commented as he came out of the shitty motel bathroom, shedding his jacket and flexing against the leather shoulder holster with a creak and a sigh. He was getting too old for this shit.

ChaCha sneered at him, still in a delightful mood evidently, and snuffed out another cigarette on the guy’s hand. The guy gave a yelping, near _giggle_ through the duct tape over his mouth.

If the mostly empty pack of Marlboro lights on the table and the dozen or so wet looking burns littering the man’s bruised and lacerated bare chest and arms was any indication, she’d been at it a while. There was a leather belt haphazardly sprawled on the table, along with a few of ChaCha’s more _exotic_ looking knives. They weren’t clean.

“Your turn.” ChaCha barked, standing up. “I’ve softened him up for you, should be like taking candy from a fucking baby.”

She ripped the duct tape off the guy’s mouth, and the guy winced but his mouth curled into some kind of fucked up grin. Like an animal, bearing its teeth.

“Come on, ChaCha, the guy probably’s got no idea, you’ve been at it for hours!” Hazel protested. “Wouldn’t he have squealed already?”

ChaCha frowned, and shook her head. “Where ever and _whenever_ this bastard went to, fuckin’ druggie’s clean this time. And still _fucking insane_!” The last bit she shouted at their victim, enraged, and pulled his head back by the roots of his hair. Hazel could see the glazed, unsteady look in the man’s eyes, farawayand pupils narrowed to pin points.

“Stupid motherfucker,” ChaCha snarled, and drove a fist up hard into the meat of the guy’s stomach.

He gave a breathless grunt and curled up in pain, shaking, but his manic eyes were all animal, tracking her even as she left him panting and let go.

“He’s all yours. I’m gonna go get some food.” ChaCha muttered, and Hazel could tell she was a little unsettled, and that alone was enough to make Hazel’s already frazzled nerves pucker up worse.

ChaCha grabbed her jacket off the back of the other chair, and glared at him over her shoulder, “Don’t do anything stupid before I get back.”

She slammed the door, leaving Hazel alone with their victim in the awkward quiet of the midday motel.

Hazel sat down on the end of the bed with a sigh. “Bitch,” he muttered under his breath. Didn’t even ask if he wanted anything.

Wearily, Hazel rolled up his wrinkled shirt sleeves, and stood back up to stare down at their captive.

“You got a name, man?” Hazel asked.

The guy didn’t respond. Hazel rolled his eyes, and reached for the battered tin dog tags that hung around the guy’s neck, and lifted them off to look at them.

The guy went deathly still, eye’s wide and mouth open in a frozen, panting snarl. “Don’t _touch them_!” He hissed.

Hazel frowned, but kept his grip on them, and tightened his other hand around the man’s throat, squeezing. “Listen, asshole, I’m asking the goddamn questions here and you’re not the one giving orders.”

The tags shifted together in Hazel’s grip with a metallic clack. _Katz, David_ on the first, _Hargreeves_ , _Klaus_ on the other.

He let them fall back to the man’s chest where they clung to him, sticky with sweat, and he released his throat.

Old man Five’s last name was Hargreeves, Hazel remembered having seen that in the dossier they’d gotten at the start of this mess. Which meant the guy in the alley was this David Katz guy, and this was Klaus.

“Klaus, huh? Weird name, but at least it’s not a number like your asshole brother.”

A weird little giggle spilled out of Klaus’s mouth. “Number _Four_ ,” Klaus sing-songed.

Hazel flinched, and Klaus’s head whipped up, meeting his eyes with Klaus’s wide manic pale ones. “That’s what my _dear old daddy_ named me. Number Four. We all were numbers once.”

“Jeez,” Hazel muttered, and swallowed nervously, “So I guess that bigger guy in the alley, that’s the one you brought with you from the past, when you stole our brief case? David, right?”

Klaus’s eyes narrowed and he practically growled, “Don’t say his name, you _bastard_! Don’t you fucking say it!” Klaus seized at the duct tape restraints, bucking wildly.

“Fuck!” Hazel swore, staggering back.

Klaus sagged back, panting and shaking, and Hazel stared at him, unsettled and wary, as he fell quiet.

“You _killed him_ ,” Klaus rasped, broken. “You killed him.”

Hazel winced, looking away. The image of the other man on his knees, pleading, the rage and devastation on his facejust in front of the barrel of Hazel’s gun, the picture swaying, going out of focus as he tried to look down the sights, shaking with nerves. He hadn’t been able to watch, as he’d pulled the trigger, and heard the man cry out and fall, felt the blood fleck onto his face.

He’d turned away and reholstered his gun, before he could stand to open them again, and even then, that face had haunted him.

_Yeah, I understand. Do you?_

The look in Klaus’s eyes now was the same.

“Christ,” Hazel swore under his breath. “Look man, okay, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The word felt just as sour and hollow as they’d felt when he’d said them the that David guy.

Klaus gave another one of those fucked up, jackal like laughs, hysterical, and there were shiny tear tracks down his face. “Sorry? _Sorry_?! Dave was the only good thing I’ve ever had in my fucking _life_ and you _took him away from me!!_ ” Klaus was screaming by the end of it, white faced and writhing against his bonds, and Hazel winced, panicked at the noise.

“Fuck, Jesus, man you need to be quiet!” Hazel hissed, shoving a hand over Klaus’s mouth.

The man’s teeth ripped through the flesh of Hazel’s thumb, dull and brutally hard, and Hazel screamed in pain, tearing his hand away from Klaus.

Hazel stared, wide eyed in horror at his mangled, bleeding hand, and nearly gagged when he heard Klaus spit a piece of _his fucking hand_ back up on the floor, blood dripping down his jaw and stuck in his beard.

“You poor _fuck_ ,” Klaus spat, laughing, tears still tracking down his face, “You can’t _see them_ …The ghosts… all these people you killed? _I_ can see them. Talk to them. If I want them to, they can reach out and _touch,_ and they’re all going to follow you _forever_ , clawing at you with their cold dead hands, screaming and wailing in your ear until you beg for death.”

Hazel’s heart was beating out of his chest, mounting in terror. “You’re fucking crazy!”

Klaus started laughing, blood stained teeth flashing, derailing into a horrible unhinged sound that had Hazel frozen, sheet white, watching as Klaus's hands started glowing white-blue, and his eyes looked as though they'd rolled back in his skull, blank and pale. 

One by one, phantasmic and unreal, the mangled bodies of the familiar victims, decades of _faithful service_ to the Commission, numbers on the pages that had been so easy to ignore, all climbing out of the woodworks, clawing and dripping and _screaming_. Random objects around the room started floating, shaking with some kind of unseen energy.

“No…no, this isn’t real, oh my god, Hazel come on, get it together!” Hazel whimpered, slapping his face, and struggling to catch his breath. He drew his gun, flinching and jumping as the shadows and the every gust of breeze in the tepid motel room came to life with mutilated ghosts. “No, get away from me!”

Hazel pulled the trigger, again and again, panic mounting as the bullets just went right through them as the ghosts came closer and closer. Hazel backed into the door, and scrambled with the handle, mumbling in panic as his gun clicked over empty. He fell on his ass as he got the door open, and he screamed as he took off running, ghosts following after him.

...

The effort to maintain so many ghosts physically manifested with a full scale concussion finally got to Klaus, and they started to fade away, disgusting and wailing as they’d came, watering out of even Klaus’s view. Objects clattered to the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Klaus sighed, breath rattling through him, shaking with the last of his sobs. All the energy and rage he’d had left just bled out of him, and suddenly revenge was the last thing he could even think of.

There was only one thing left to do.

Klaus strained against his restraints, and slammed his head against the corner of the nearby table as hard as he possibly could, over and over again.

_Dave was waiting for him._

…

When Klaus woke up, this time, the scenery seemed to have shifted, no longer the easy, muted colors it had been, the warm, soft breeze didn’t blow, and there was no irritable little girl on her tricycle.

This time, the colors seemed closer to real, still quiet and subdued, but more drearily…plain. He appeared to be standing in a barbershop, the bell on the glass door behind him just having clanged as it shut, even though he couldn’t remember opening it.

A familiar voice shook him out of his reverie.

“I expected better from you, Number Four.” Professor Hargreeves intoned in his usual, stuffy crisp accent, and the image of him, with his mustache and ever present monocle, clad in his usual, nearly victorian shirt and trousers, a plain white apron over the top, made Klaus’s heart seize in his chest.

“Where’s Dave?” Klaus rasped, cold dread seeping in. If _he_ was here, and so was _Dad_ …oh. “We’re in Hell, aren’t we?” Klaus said brokenly.

“Of course not.” Hargreeves snapped, face twisting in irritation. “This is Purgatory.”

“Oh,” Klaus breathed, shaking, because _of course_. The only thread of his sanity that hadn’t frayed rested on the hope beyond hope that maybe that meant that someday, he could get into Heaven, and find Dave.

The idea that Dave could be anywhere else, in Klaus’s frazzled mind, was unthinkable.

Hargreeves cleared his throat, glaring, unimpressed by Klaus’s borderline hysterics. “Surely, I thought having the power to commune with and summon the dead, I would have been speaking with you scarce hours after my demise. Imagine my _surprise_ when I find out you’ve been gallivanting about, taking drugs and sodomizing with some—”

Klaus’s fist collided with Hargreeve’s face as hard as Klaus could manage, and he felt his knuckles split open under the force.

Hargreeves staggered back, colliding with the counter behind him, sending scissors and comes skittering across the floor.

The old man’s face, _man_ , to have seen that in his teenage years would’ve been all his dreams come true.

He looked sheet white, clutching his cheek in disbelief, blood dripping from his nose and the corner of his mouth, and pure shock written in his eyes.

“Number Four!” Hargreeves barked, trying to collect himself, wary and attempting to stand back up for all that he was clearly still shaken.

“I’ve got a _fucking name_ , old man!” Klaus snarled back.

If possible, this seemed to stun the Professor more than the violence had, and that just made the rage building in Klaus burn even hotter.

“Control yourself!” The professor shouted, nearly stammering, and it was then that Klaus realized that the very many pairs of scissors in the barbershop were _floating_ in the air around him, all pointed straight at Hargreeves.

They clattered to the floor, and Klaus gasped. _How had he done that_?

“Your powers…seem to have improved dramatically, Number Four.” Hargreeves remarked, fascinated, and Klaus couldn’t help the fucked up laugh that spilled out of his throat.

“You don’t even _know_ my name, do you?” Klaus forced out around his cackle. Hargreeves paled, and seemed to become further unsettled.

“Now, Number Four, there isn’t time for this kind of _trifle_ —” He started.

“It’s _Lucky_ , you goddamn bastard,” Klaus growled.

Hargreeves scoffed, frowning in confusion, “Surely Grace would never have given you or any of the other children such a ridiculous moniker, it would have been strictly against her protocols.”

“You don’t get to know Mom’s name for me, I’m sure she told you, you just didn’t even bother to remember it,” Klaus whispered, “Lucky is the name I earned.”

“ _Lucky_? What were you doing, to earn a name like that, prostituting yourself to the better part of the city for drugs, you useless child.” Hargreeves sneered.

Klaus drove his fist up into the professor’s gut, hard and right up under the diaphragm, just like Hondo had taught him. The old man sagged like a sack of bricks and Klaus dragged him back up by the apron strings to whisper in his ear.

“You know, _Dad_ … it only took a month before all the ghosts of the men I killed in that damn war to stop haunting me, because _they_ got afraid, of _me_. Was that the lesson I was supposed to learn when I was ten? Huh?!” Klaus gave him a jerk, shaking, and let go, seeing the realization finally flash across the old man’s face.

“Two _years_ in that fucking jungle, and all I had was _him,_ don’t you _dare_ say a fucking word about him. I could gut you like the pig you are right here, old man, I promise you that I wouldn’t even flinch. Hell, I might even enjoy it.” Klaus snarled, low and harsh in his throat.

Hargreeves was staring at him, for the first time perhaps in Klaus’s entire life, with his eyes sparkling with fascination and the wheels of machinations cranking behind them. The old man straightened, visibly collecting himself and smoothing out his rumbled clothes and tucking his shirt in where Klaus had raked it free, his eyes never truly leaving Klaus. Like he was a dangerous animal that had him cornered, unpredictable and wild.

“That’s enough of that,” he said simply, giving a weak scoff, “we haven’t time for it. You have truly changed, Number Four, more than I could have imagined.”

Klaus barked a rough laugh, not missing the slight as the old man stubbornly continued to call him by his _number_ , “Yeah, you prick, that’s what happens to _kids_ when they grow up, you know sooner or later they stop being perfect little soldiers and want their own damn life.”

Hargreeves gave a small noise of agreement, and sighed. “Perhaps that was my error from the start.”

Klaus out and out laughed at that, and Hargreeves glared at him, unamused, and then turned back to the barber’s counter, rearranging and tidying, and then gestured to the barber’s chair.

“What do you want, old man?” Klaus spat. “I’ve…I gotta find Dave, _I_ don’t have time for this. I’ll let you get back to giving Stalin’s mustache a trim and golfing with Hitler, or however you’re passing your undead days these days.”

“Don’t be childish. Sit.” Hargreeves ordered, snapping his fingers at the seat like Klaus was a disobedient dog.

“I’m _leaving_ , asshole!” Klaus snarled, turning for the door and whipping it open, only for the world to flash to white and refocus on the exact same image he’d seen when he first came too, bell clanging behind him.

Hargreeves raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Come, sit, we have much to discuss.”

Klaus wanted to scream, snarling with rage. Whatever the hell was going on with this place, _Dad_ was somehow pulling puppet strings, and the idea sat in his stomach heavy and burning.

He sat down, pouting. Hargreeves wrapped the thin nylon cape around Klaus’s shoulders, and shoved his head back, wrapping a hot, damp towel against the lower half of his face. He then busied himself with sharpening the old fashioned straight razor he pulled from his belt, drawing it over and over the leather strop with a small practiced motion. Klaus listened to the rasp of the blade, on edge and reeling, hyper-focused and in a daze all at once.

“You were always the wild card, Number Four.” Hargreeves began, wetting the puck of soap in the shaving bowl and frothing up the boars hair brush.

Klaus grunted in irritation, glaring when Hargreeve’s face appeared on the edge of his vision and the towel pulled free so that the soapy brush could attack his chin and cheeks, slathering the white foam all in his scrappy beard.

“When you were a very small child, you used to talk to the ghosts freely... I believed them overly developed imaginary friends or some other such frivolity at first. You levitated objects in your nursery, in your sleep as well.” Hargreeves spoke quietly, measured and crisp, nearly academic, and Klaus couldn’t even think of the last time he’d heard _Dad’s_ voice without some kind of negative inflection.

The brush finished its last pass, and Hargreeves set it aside for the straight razor. He stood in front of Klaus, now, focused on his work.

“The world is ending tomorrow,” Hargreeves said flatly, “I had hoped…that my death, in bringing all of you together, would help focus you as a team once more.”

Klaus stilled, barely breath as Hargreeves scraped the knife along his whiskers, smooth and efficient, not even a pinch or knick as he worked.

“Oh,” Klaus whispered, feeling the emotions clog up in his throat. _Goddamn bastard_.

Hargreeves tutted, “None of that. It seems to have been in vain, regardless, nothing to be done about it. Considering _you_ killed yourself for even less, I hardly think you have much to stand on.”

Klaus winced, and was rewarded with a tighter, unforgiving grip on his chin, forcing him to tilt his head back up and he froze as he felt the knife pass along the fragile skin of his throat.

Hargreeves scoffed. “What use is being afraid I’ll slit your throat, when you’re already dead, boy?” Klaus flushed in anger, but Hargreeves relaxed his grip, and his eyes when they met Klaus’s were cold and calculating again. “Besides, if there is to be any chance of stopping this, you can’t stay dead for much longer.”

Klaus seized, heart lurching in his chest, “ _NO!_ ”

The hand on his face tightened fiercely, knife still scraping away the last of the scruff on his cheeks.

“Surely you didn’t think you could stay?” Hargreeves asked, wiping away the last traces of froth with another hot towel.

Klaus swatted at the towel, leaping up out of the chair and ripping the stupid cape off, panting in rage.

“I’m _staying dead_ this time! You don’t…you don’t understand, _Dave is waiting for me_ , I have to stay, I have to find him, you can’t make me go, please—” Klaus was practically screaming, panic gripping him and plunging him into fullblown hysterics.

Hargreeves’ palm collided with Klaus’s cheek with a crack, and Klaus froze.

“That’s _enough_!”

Klaus felt his blood nearly curdling in desperate rage, like a beast thrashing against the bars of a too-small cage it knew it couldn’t break free of.

“David Katz is not here, nor is he in Heaven. Purgatory is no place for the living, you fool boy,” Hargreeves snapped, wearing his own look of rage.

“What.” Klaus rasped.

“Now that I have your attention…Number Four, you have seen what is to come, if you don’t stop her, if there is to be any chance of stopping the apocalypse, you have to stop _her_ ,” Hargreeves said cryptically.

“ _Dave’s alive,_ ”Klaus breathed, trembling, “Oh god, what’ve I done, shit, shit, _fuck_ …”

The second slap was just as stinging, and Klaus snapped out of it, snarling at the Professor.

“Focus, Number Four! I was never privy to the reason, but I knew from the beginning that she would be the death of us all. You must stop her.”

“Who?” Klaus asked.

Hargreeves’ face twisted into sharp disgust and hatred. “Your sister. My greatest failure...Number Seven.”

“ _What?!_ ” Klaus exclaimed in shock. Hargreeve’s outline seemed to give a glitching wobble, coming in and out of focus, and the background pitched, becoming a jungle, a coffeeshop, a construction site, the tundra. Hargreeves met his eyes with a final glare.

“It’s time to leave now, Number Four,” He muttered.

Hargreeves blinked out of existence and the ground lurched, shifting, and Klaus felt a manic giggle spill up from his gut, hysterical.

“What a fucking bastard.”

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so for real I kinda struggled with that scene a lot and I'm not sure how I feel about it or whether I'll change it eventually. I just had a lot of difficulty hashing out the dynamic between the two of them, and I don't think I'm satisfied but it's fine for now, atleast, haha. Let me know what you think, good or bad! I treasure your guys' comments, seriously!! 🖤🦕


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! New chapter, woo, rescue is coming! 🖤🦕

The scene at the motel when Patch pulled around the corner, was a picture of utter chaos. Three different cruisers and an ambulance were parked in the parking lot, with the motel manager screaming at the cops standing near him, if his hands waving wildly and spit flying were any indication. There were tire marks skidding out of the parking lot, the scrape of an undercarriage along the sidewalk and churned up landscaping.

“Fuck.” Diego swore, unbuckling his seat belt before she even got the car in park, ready to make a dash for it.

Patch flicked him upside the head, scowling. “Hey! None of that shit. Remember? We do this my way, or not at all, so simmer the hell down, Rambo.”

Diego grimaced, but nodded.

Patch sighed and got out of the car. A couple of the uniforms immediately perked up when she flashed her shield, looking relieved. “Alright, boys, what’ve we got, where’s that car?”

“Took off like a bat out of hell, soon as we got here about five minutes ago. Unit 3-5 took off after it, they were the ones who called it in.” One of the officers, Mahoney, according to his nameplate, said.

Patch raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “And the reason you’re here and not providing backup is what, exactly?”

The officer’s partner, one Officer Cortez, glared back. “Look, Detective, we got called in from across town for a shooting, that kinda takes priority over a damn APB follow.”

Diego froze, and he and Patch shared a worried glance. Klaus’s odds of being in that car just went from decent to slim-to-none.

“A shooting? Here at the motel?” Patch demanded.

“Yeah, lucky most of the rooms were empty for the day, but a lady in room 104 called it in on account of about a whole damn clip of bullets coming hailing down through the ceiling from the room upstairs. She said she heard a bunch of freaky wailing, screaming noises? Probably just some asshole watching ahorror movie or something, then it started raining shrapnel and popcorn ceiling.”

Officer Cortez gestured back towards the EMT wagon, and said “She caught a graze for the trouble, but nothing life-threatening. EMT’s said she’s lit up on meth though, so the screaming and ghost story shit was probably in her head.”

“What about the room above it? The shooter could be our guy,” Patch asked sharply.

Mahoney shrugged, “Could be, timing adds up, they took off right as we got on scene. Bum on the corner of Wilkins over there with Hotch and Phillips said he saw a chick driving, and a big guy in a suit that looked pretty rattled, said he came running out of the motel, and got in the car with the female driver and they took off.”

Diego swore under his breath, and Patch glanced back, her face echoing the sentiment. "Bum say anything about anybody in the back, or the trunk?" 

"Nope. I mean, we're lucky he saw anything, and was sober enough to remember it," Mahoney replied, "You think there was someone with them?" 

“Maybe, hopefully not. The building clear yet?” Patch steamrolled ahead.

Cortez snorted, shaking his head, “What do I look like, S.W.A.T.? We’ve got eyes on the whole building from here. The shooter was either your thugs with the grey station wagon, or whoever it was is still in one of those second floor rooms, ain’t going anywhere. We’ve got backup called in.”

Patch swore under her breath again, fists clenching in frustration, and reluctantly thanked the two officers. She turned to face the hotel manager and the other pair of beleaguered officers trying to deal with him.

“Listen, I want you fucks off my property right the hell now, you’re scaring off all my customers!” The beet-red man hollered.

Diego rolled his eyes, and Patch snorted, “Cut the shit, Alfonzo, there were shots fired on the premise _inside_ your damn motel, if there's anybody still here, they're not going anywhere just cause we're here. I need the key for the room above 204.”

“You need a fucking warrant,” the man snapped, seething, “I know my rights!” He puffed up his chest, charging right at Patch.

Diego cut him off, shoving him back, and growling, “Back the fuck up, asshole, you know damn well we don’t need a warrant! The detective gave you an order.”

“I don’t take orders from fucking pigs!” Alfonzo snarled.

“Either you give me the key or we break the door down,” Patch threatened cheerfully, “Feel free to try and send us the bill while I slap you with obstruction of justice charges, along with conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, and why not, let’s throw in a little racketeering, prostitution, and health code violations while we’re at it.” 

Alfonzo paled, sneer frozen on his face. “You got me on n-none a’ that shit!”

“Try me,” Patch challenged.

“Fucking cunt,” Alfonzo snarled under his breath, turning to head into the office building.

Diego fought not to deck the guy right there, but Patch’s amused glare held him back.

Alfonzo returned, and chucked the brass key at Patch, who caught it with a grin.

Diego followed her up past Alfonzo towards the stairs to the second floor. Alfonzo shouted up after them, “I find a fucking _thing_ out of place in that room, I’m suing!”

“God, what a prick,” Patch muttered, and Diego chuckled. 

The balcony walkway leading across the second floor to Room 204 was dangerously caving downwards, likely rotting out from underneath. Diego stilled when he saw that the door to 204 was just resting shut, cracked open.

“Shit. Klaus, you better be alive,” he whispered.

Patch drew her gun and looked back, motioning for him to take her six, and she kicked through the door in one smooth motion, slamming it open.

“Police!” She shouted, “Hands where I can see th—Diego!!” She cried, spotting the bloodied, unmoving body taped to a chair, slumped against the nearby end table across the room.

“Klaus!” Diego called out, hands abandoning his readied knives to the floor as he rushed over to his brother. Klaus’s skin was still warm under his hands, the blood on his temple in his hair tacky and wet, but his head lolled limply under Diego’s grip, and he couldn’t find a pulse, “Oh no, no no no…fuck, Klaus, oh god.”

Distantly, he heard Patch call over the balcony for a medic. He scrambled, hands trembling, to grab another knife from his shoulder holster and cut away the tape to get Klaus free. His brother's body was littered in cuts and little burns, fresh bruises coating his ribs under the tattoos, and by the time Diego got the duct tape hacked away from Klaus’s skin, he could barely see through the watery film on his eyes.

“Fuck, Klaus, come on!” He shouted, starting CPR, driving the heels of his hands hard into Klaus’s too-skinny chest as hard as he could. He kept going, and went to tip Klaus’s head back to inflate his lungs, only to be met with Klaus’s suddenly wide open eyes, rolled back and glowing white. Diego flailed back in a startled shout, and fought to catch his racing heart-rate as Klaus’s breath returned with massive cough jag.

“Oh thank God,” he heard Patch sigh.

“Klaus?” Diego called quietly.

“Man…fuckin’ _oowwwww,_ ” Klaus whined, voice pained and wheezy, but alive.

“Bro, you have _got_ to stop scaring the shit out of me like that.” Diego swore, but felt his mouth start to turn up in a weary smile. He spared a grateful glance upwards.

Klaus gave a jagged laugh. “For what it’s worth, s’not fun for me either. ”

Diego kneeled back up, and was relieved with Klaus’s eyes peered back up at him their familiar pale green.

“Back in the land of the living?” Patch asked him, and Klaus gave a wheezing cackle at that, and much to Diego’s distress, began flailing around to try and sit up.

“Jesus, bro, easy,” Diego snapped, crouching down to help him.

Klaus winced in pain, but nodded gratefully. “Gotta say, torture pound sesh round two was just a _blast_ , kids, I’m beat. Hah, get it? Diego, did you try and kiss me? That only works in Disney princess movies.”

Diego scowled, “It’s called CPR, you little punk, and maybe if you quit _dying on me_ —”

“Ugh, cooties,” Klaus mumbled sleepily, scrunching up his nose.

“You two are not funny.” Patch snapped, although her hint of a smile ratted her out.

“So, what’d I miss?” Klaus asked, grinning, and Diego winced in disgust at the sight of the drying blood covering his mouth and teeth, flaking out of his beard. 

Diego raised an eyebrow. “Dave got shot, but he’s alive. Turns out the fat white boy Clown is a bad shot, thankfully.”

Klaus’s expression blackened, where Diego had thought he’d looked relieved. Klaus snarled, “Bastards let me think he was dead. Had to find out from dear old Dad himself after I managed to off myself.”

Diego and Patch paused, and glanced worriedly at each other.

“Okay…I’m just gonna leave that entire statement alone. _For now_. Because it’s going to make me very, very angry if I think about it.” Diego said quietly.

Klaus shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Detective,” One of the EMT’s greeted, taking in the scene and unshouldering her gear bag. Patch glanced and nodded, “Just one injured, he’s conscious now.”

The two EMTs headed over to Klaus, who grinned. “Char _l-eeeeene_ , darling, honey bear, light of my life.”

The blond female EMT chuckled, shaking her head. “Jesus, Klaus, the shit you get up to man. You live a weird life.”

Klaus cackled, and she snapped on her gloves. She muttered something to her partner, who shined a flashlight in Klaus’s eyes, strobing between the left and right, making Klaus wince and close his eyes tight.

“He’s definitely concussed,” the male EMT said.

“Rude. Oh hey, Ed,” Klaus muttered, “Could’a toldja that.”

Ed, the less charmed male EMT, grunted and started probing his neck and jaw for further injury, and Charlene chuckled. “How’d it happen this time, Klaus? Rabid squirrel attack? Trash can lid jousting?”

Klaus laughed, slumping against Diego’s lap. “Diego said I can’t talk about it. It’s top secret.”

Charlene rolled her eyes, and glanced at Diego. “Diego?” She asked, and he nodded, “I’m gonna need you to move so we can get him on the floor, okay?”

“No signs of neck or spinal,” Ed said clinically.

“Alright, Klaus.” Charlene said, leaning over his face so she could make eye contact. “I need you to tell me if you think you need to go to the hospital or not. Because I know you can’t afford it, and I’m only gonna make you go if you need to, okay? How’s the pain?”

“On a scale of one to eleven, I’d give it a solid water buffalo. Maybe a water buffalo in a poncho.” Klaus muttered, giggly.

Patch glared down at him over the EMT’s shoulder, looking concerned.

“Look, he’s got a concussion, and he’s been pretty beat up, should you really be _asking him_ if he _wants_ to go and just take him?” Patch snapped.

Charlene chuckled, and getting out some first aid bandages, gauze and alcohol swabs.

“Man, how long you been off the beat, Detective? If he’s not coding, he’s not riding in the van. He’ll just A.M.A. himself the second he comes to, anyhow.” Charlene glared a little fondly at Klaus, who offered a pained smile.

“I’m still not giving you any good drugs, if you won’t cooperate, you idjit.” She said.

Klaus mock pouted, wagging his finger at her nearly drunkenly. “Boo, didn’t you hear, Charlie’s Angel, I’m clean as a whistle!”

Charlene glanced back at Ed, who outright laughed, and she rolled her eyes, starting to work on cleaning the larger cuts that would need some butterfly bandages. “Wow, bud, congrats.” She said, feigning impressed, tone of voice almost the same kind of placating and condescending one would use on a small child boasting of dramatic feats of imagination. 

Klaus winced as she rubbed the bigger cuts with alcohol swabs. “I mean it, no more drugs, got clean in the Vietnam war, ain’t touched the stuff since.”

Charlene looked a little concerned now, glancing back at her partner, who shrugged, but dug out a Naloxone pen and handed it to her.

“Klaus, bud, I need you to tell me what you took, and how much. Did you go to a different dealer?” She said more urgently, snapping her fingers in front of his face to try and get him to focus.

Klaus jolted at the sound, and glanced at her, genuinely offended by the look on his face. “Wow, _rude_ , honey bear.”

Charlene huffed in frustration, and turned to Diego and Patch. “How’s he been responding since he came to?”

Diego shook his head. “He really is clean, he’s just crazy. I can vouch for him, I’m his brother. He’s been clean…at least these past few days.”

Klaus scowled, wanting to interrupt, but Diego deliberately scowled back. _Shut up idiot_. 

Charlene sighed, but handed the Naloxone pen back to her partner and turned back to Klaus’s injuries.

She probed Klaus’ ribs and gut for any sign of internal injury or pressure, and seemed satisfied not to find any. She muttered something to Ed, who started getting out some additional bandages to wrap his ribs.

“Hey Diego, don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re Klaus’s brother…help him go see an actual doctor, who can prescribe him some proper meds, okay? Undiagnosed, untreated schizophrenia is a lot to deal with, I know, but he needs _help_. He’s gotten worse since the last time I saw him. Full scale delusions like that are usually the tipping point.” Charlene said softly, pitching her voice carry to Diego, ignoring Klaus.

Diego winced, and glanced down at his brother, feeling waves of guilt, for how he used to blow Klaus off all the times before this, before everything that had happened this week, back when Klaus was just all of their’s _fuck-up druggie brother_. A twinge of guilt for the white lie that at least the _Vietnam thing_ wasn’t actually a delusion.

“I’ll…consider it.”

Charlene nodded gratefully and offered him a reassuring smile. “Please do. I see enough sweet guys like Klaus turning up dead too young, and most of them don’t have brothers who give a shit about them, like I think you do.”

“I’m trying.” Diego said quietly, feeling a little chastened, “Haven’t been doing a good job, obviously.”

Charlene gestured for Ed to help her, cleaning, taping and bandaging their way through the worst of Klaus’s injuries, Ed tackling the still oozing wound at Klaus’s temple. Their gloved hands worked quick and efficiently, cleaning the rest of the blood off Klaus's face and jaw after Charlene confirmed that the blood wasn't from any kind of internal injury to Klaus's mouth.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. He’s an addict. My little cousin was one too… _was_ , because she’s dead.” Charlene said flatly, wincing. “I beat myself up for a long time wishing I’d done more, pushed her more to get clean, but I remember how hard it was and how much she pushed me away, too. It’s not easy. You just gotta be there for him, and help him as much as he’ll let you, when he does, okay?”

Diego met her eyes, and gave her a warm smile. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” She agreed.

Klaus whined at the stinging pain on his temple as Ed finished up, and glared pitifully at Diego like it was his fault.

“Alright. Klaus, we’re gonna wrap your ribs up and then see how you’re looking, but so far I think as long as your brother’s got a couch you can sleep this one off on,” Charlene glanced up at Diego in askance, half glaring in an _order_ , and Diego nodded sheepishly, “You should be alright.”

Klaus’s face was pinched in pain, but he nodded, and gave her a forced smile. “Yeah.”

Ed and Charlene tag-teamed to get the ace-bandages wrapped around Klaus’s ribs, and then they helped him sit up and eventually got him on his feet.

Klaus wobbled a little dangerously, but stayed up.

“Diego, you know how to deal with a concussion, right?” Charlene asked, transferring Klaus’s arm over to Diego who nodded. Klaus’ thin frame as shaking a little as Diego took the brunt of his weight, and Ed let him sag the rest of the way onto Diego.

“Keep him awake for the first 24, Advil, lots of water, no bright lights or flashing images, that kind of thing?” Diego asked.

Charlene nodded, pleased. “Perfect. Call the nurses’ line at the hospital if he starts getting worse, any seizures, vomiting, or splitting head pains, could be signs of internal head trauma or a swelling, and he’ll need to get checked out immediately.”

Diego nodded, glancing at Klaus, who looked pale, but was toughing it out.

“Alright, bro, let’s get you to the car, okay?” He said softly.

Klaus nodded sleepily, and trudged along beside Diego, staggering a little and swaying, but able to at least keep his legs going and support a little of his own weight.

“Thanks for coming out, guys,” Patch said to the EMT’s as they finished packing up the rest of their gear. Charlene hoisted up the bag and nodded.

“Our pleasure. Klaus, man, keep your nose clean, alright?” She called.

Klaus’s arm flailed up in a weak wave, and Diego heard him chuckle as they started down the stairs.

...

Klaus slumped into the back seat of Eudora’s cruiser, Diego sitting next to him, shoulder propping Klaus’s sleepy head up, as Patch finished things up with the rest of the uniforms outside.

She shut the door with a huff and gave a gusty sigh, sinking into the front seat. She glanced at her watch and winced.

“Man, all this fun and it’s only one o’clock in the afternoon.” She said.

Diego chuckled, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“How’s your boy doing back there?” She asked.

Diego glanced at Klaus, who had seriously passed out and was already drooling on his sweater.

“Exhausted,” Diego replied.

Patch sighed, smiling, “At least he’s okay. We got there in time, for once.”

“Perps still got away,” Diego grumbled, expression darkening. Patch shook her head, frowning, “We’ll get ‘em, Diego. _Patience_.”

“Patience has never really been a strong suit of mine, ‘Dora, you know that,” Diego said with a little smile, which made her snort.

“Well, we’ve got two options. Option one is I drop you and your brother off at that rat infested boiler room you call an apartment, so that Klaus can rest off that concussion—”

“Eudora,” Diego whined, and she glared through the rearview mirror.

“Option one requires patience and you _trusting me to do my job_ , which apparently is still a struggle for you.” She snapped, unimpressed, and Diego looked appropriately chastened.

“Option two…is that I call in some overtime and we follow up on this lead ourselves. Considering that the world is allegedly ending _tomorrow_ , I may be amendable to that,” She glared fondly when Diego’s ears seemed to visibly perk up, “ _Conditional_ on your continued good behavior and whether Klaus is feeling up to it. Klaus?”

Klaus didn’t so much as twitch, and Diego shrugged his shoulder a bit to get him to wake up. Klaus whimpered, squirming to bury his face into Diego’s shoulder, which admittedly was kinda adorable.

“Klaus, come on, bud, you can’t sleep with your concuss—” Diego started, trying to move out from under him.

Klaus’s eyes flew open and he jerked upright, eyes glowing pure white.

Diego stared in unsettled surprise, and Patch turned around in surprise that quickly morphed into shock as well.

“Holy shit.” She muttered. "That's not weird at all." 

Klaus was shivering, eyes still wide and white as a sheet, and there were tears rolling down his cheeks. “No, no, Vanya, no!!” He mumbled, voice getting louder and louder with panic.

“Klaus!” Diego shouted and tried to shake him out of it, but Klaus’s blind gaze didn’t stray from its unseen target. Klaus sobbed, and reached forward suddenly, screaming in wordless panic, and Diego scrambled to pull him back.

“Jesus,” Diego swore, “Klaus, come on snap out of it!”

Klaus collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut, sobbing and limp against Diego’s bulkier frame. Diego felt frozen for a second, but sighed and pulled Klaus tight against his chest in a hug that only felt awkward for a second. 

“Hey, bro, it's okay…” Diego said softly. He ran his hands down Klaus’s shaking back, careful of his bandages.

Patch cleared her throat awkwardly and stayed turned around in her seat to make eye contact with Diego.

“Alright so I’ll be the boring normal human here and ask the obvious question: What the ever loving fuck was that?” Patch drawled.

Diego met her eyes and shrugged helplessly.

“It was the future,” Klaus rasped, voice hoarse and brittle as he pushed himself back up off Diego and wiped at his face, hands moving numbly as if he didn’t quite have his motor control back. His eyes when they met Diego’s were back to their familiar grey-green, bright with horrible clarity.

Patch’s face twisted in an uncomfortable grimace, and she sighed. “He’s serious, isn’t he?”

Diego nodded.

“Well, fuck,” Patch said eloquently.

Klaus barked a laugh, dry and crackly. “How do you think _I_ feel?”

“What did you see?” Diego asked, and Klaus’s expression sobered.

“Vanya. Oh god, Dad was right…” Klaus whimpered.

“Vanya? Wait, what, what does  _Dad_ have to do with this?” Diego whispered in disbelief.

“The old bastard,” Klaus growled, clawing at his hair in frustration, “is the one who started this fucking shit show…Vanya’s gonna finish it. But I think I know how to find her. Dunno where she is, but we’ve gotta find her, Diego, we can stop it, I…I can’t explain how I know but I _know it_.”

“Relax, bro, I believe you, okay, we'll find her,” Diego said weakly.

Patch turned the key in the ignition and started the cruiser up, grinning in the rear view at Klaus.

“Well?” She asked, “Where are we going, Spooky-boy? I need a lead to work with, here.”

Klaus grinned back, feral around the edges. "Back to Griddy's. Where it all began." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did Klaus see in the future, lol, who knows. As always, your guy's comments give me sweet sweet life. Next episode, will we find out what Dave's mutation is? Will Five unleash his inner grumpy old man on our poor assassins? Will Luther ever get the stick out of his ass? Will Ben get over his ghostly sugar high??! All this and more, lol, stay tuned. Hopefully I can get at least the next chapter out this week, then we'll be on a brief hiatus over September, regular updates resuming in October.  
> 🖤🦕


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, it's been a hot minute, huh? Thank you all for being so supportive and patient waiting for updates! I promise that even if it goes slow, this story is absolutely not abandoned and will be finished eventually. Enjoy!  
> 🖤🦕

The battered silver sedan screeched to a halt in front of their van looking like it had seen better days, the front fender bent nearly in half and dragging nearly to the concrete, and a head light hanging limp in its socket by its cording.

The two assassins, when they climbed out of it, looked even worse.

Five smirked. “Well, you two look like you’ve been having fun.”

ChaCha shut her driver side door hard and very deliberately shrugged further into her ripped suit coat and buttoned it back up.

“Cut the shit, old man. Where’s our briefcase?” She snapped.

“It’s like no one ever house trained you, really, do I have to do all the Commission’s work for them?” Five replied, trite and condescending. “Our agreement was that I return your briefcase in exchange for my brother, who it seems you _don’t have_.”

Hazel looked pale and twitchy, even more than usual, and ChaCha glared at him over the hood of the car. Her hand fell to her gun and drew in an instant, and she stared down its barrel at Five’s smug face in quiet rage. “Plans change.”

Five tutted, shaking his head, and put his hands in his school shorts pockets.

Luther, Allison and Dave were flanked in behind him closer to the van, and Dave had his own rifle up and on ChaCha. He chambered a round in a harsh metallic clack. “Put the gun down,” Dave snarled at her.

ChaCha swore and shifted her gun to point at Dave. “Jesus, what does it take to kill one of you fuckers….wait a damn minute. Hazel, you son of a bitch!” She swung her gun back around at her partner, who had his hands up in placation already.

“You told me you shot this motherfucker back in that alley!” ChaCha screeched.

“I did!” Hazel shouted in defense.

“Then why is he still alive? What kind of incompetent fucking asshole goes around calling himself an assassin, when he can’t even shoot a guy at point blank? What, was your _carpal tunnel syndrome_ acting up?” ChaCha jeered.

Five glanced at his watch, sighed, and held a hand out low to stop Dave from advancing. The soldier was tensed, ready to take the shot, and although the gun was heavy, it was clearly a familiar weight in his hands. His bead on the pair of assassins didn’t so much as waver for all that there was sweat soaking through his ripped shirt and running down the bridge of his nose in the heat of the desert.

“ChaCha, I swear, I shot him! I did.” Hazel whimpered, pleading.

“He did shoot him,” Five called, “More of a chicken-winging than an assassination, but hey, Hazel’s already got my recommendation for termination in his file, he was too green from the start.”

“You shut your mouth, old man!” Hazel cried, and ChaCha swore, gun back on Dave.

She snarled, “I gotta do all the fucking work around here!” She grabbed a second gun, a full-auto short-barreled Uzi, from the looks of it, from inside the car door and cocked it as well. “Jesus Christ, Hazel, get your fucking gun out and shoot this jackass between the eyes like you were supposed to last time, or I swear to god!”

Hazel fumbled his gun out, and Five looked down at his watch in boredom, blinked, and felt the familiar oily sensation of time freezing to a stop around them.

...

“Right on time, Madam,” Five drawled.

The Handler, looking as perfectly coiffed and calm as the day he’d first met her, stepped out of nothing into the stillness of their frozen reality, her heels echoing as they tapped across the hot pavement.

“Five. It’s been too long,” she purred back.

“Hardly. What is it they say, _time is relative_?” Five said, “I figured by now you’d gotten my love notes.”

She huffed dramatically, as though Five were behaving every inch the child he appeared. “Quite. Seven dead agents in Moscow, twelve in Berlin, eight in Sao Paulo…the list goes on. Nearly every major Commission base in the Central Finite Curve. You really seem to have outdone yourself, old man.”

“What can I say? I never liked to share my toys with the other kids. Consider the body trail my letter of Resignation.” Five grinned back at her like a shark.

Her gaze sharpened, but her face stayed coy and charming. “I think the Commission is entitled to know what it did to deserve such a betrayal. Particularly from one of its most….accomplished agents.”

Five’s good humor vanished as well. “You know why, Priscilla. My goals and the Commission’s were never the same, only temporarily aligned. A partnership of convenience, nothing more. Once I had what I needed to finish my work, well…you and I both know the Commission doesn’t exactly have a _retirement plan_. I’m old, you know. Maybe I wanted a beach in Fiji and a nice Mojito instead of a bullet to the brain.”

She scoffed. “Oh, Five. You always were such a _child_ at heart. Clinging to that silly fantasy right from the start. When will you ever realize that the Apocalypse cannot be stopped? That the _Commission_ can’t be stopped?”

Five’s smile was wide and cold as the void of space.

“When will _you_ ever learn to stop underestimating me, Madam Handler?” He said quietly.

In the frozen instant of time, there was no sound but their voices and what their feet made against the ground, unearthly absent of the constant drone of the wind and hum of insects humans were so used to they barely heard. The sound of Five’s portalling was nearly deafening in contrast, as he disappeared and reappeared behind the Handler in an instant, Dave’s gun yanked from his frozen grip and pressed hard into the back of her skull.

Her face twisted in shock, ugly anger at being outplayed at war with her disbelief. “How did you—that’s impossible! You can’t use your powers here, the time continuum is _frozen_!”

“Maybe it is. Maybe the device you used to freeze it isn’t as thorough as you think it is.” Five hissed, “Maybe I’m far more powerful than you can even imagine, _little girl,_ and you never had a chance to control me in the first place.”

She closed her eyes, shivering slightly, and swallowed. “Five, be reasonable—”

“You took my family from me!” Five roared, pushing the gun into her neck and kicking her legs out from under her as she fell to her knees on the hot pavement.

“You took my whole _world_ from me when I was nothing but a naive _child_ , and left me to rot in it for nearly a lifetime.” Five rasped, quiet and quaking with fury. “I will _never_ stop until the Commission is nothing but a fucking whisper in the void, forgotten to time itself.”

Her eyes when they met his over her shoulder were wide with fear, “You want me to be your messenger?”

“No. You _are_ the message.” Five said shortly, thumbed the rifle into auto and held the trigger.

The Handler’s stunned, scared expression remained fixed on her face even as she fell to the concrete in a mass of blood.

The barrel of the rifle smoked, hot to the touch, as he lowered it, and the immense mental toll of controlling the very fabric of time and space came crashing down on him.

He bent down to crush the small metal device in her hand in a vindictive slam under the butt of Dave’s rifle, and he looked up when he heard a gurgling noise spill out of the Handler’s mouth as it twisted in a fatal final smile.

“Check…mate.” Handler whispered as the device gave a final sparking shock and died.

In the scant fraction of a second it took Five’s head to whip up and his eyes to take in the cluster of bullets already in flight from ChaCha’s guns, time resumed with a deafening crack.

He was too late.

…

Dave had felt the sudden lurch of force as something unseen had ripped his gun out of his hands, leaving him unbalanced, just as he’d seen ChaCha go to pull the trigger. The next blink, there was the familiar bang and muzzle flash and he felt as though he were moving on instinct, faster than his brain could keep up with. Luther and Allison were off to the side of him, too far to reach, and suddenly he was on top of them, both of them knocked to the ground faster than he could even warn them.

He must’ve caught a couple of the rounds as they grazed above him, maybe hit his shoulder blade, because his back was _on fire_ with pain, throbbing and more intense than he’d ever felt from a graze before. He hoped the bullets hadn’t caught and burrowed in, because that’s exactly like it felt like and a guy could only sponge up so many bullets before this shit started to get old.

Luther and Allison’s faces below his were wide-eyed with shock, and Dave winced as he tried to prop himself off them, feeling too weak limbed to move with much coordination. His entire back and shoulders were screaming at him in agony, but he forced his way through the pain.

“Y’all alright?” He asked, staggering back to try and kneel up and give them some space, when he felt gravity shift behind him, like someone’d tied a parachute to his chest and it’d just caught wind, and he swore as he staggered backwards to his feet and nearly fell ass over teakettle. Luther and Allison were still staring at him, stunned, and Ben appeared from out of the van with a slow impressed whistle.

“Klaus is gonna make _so_ many bird jokes when he finds out.” Ben drawled.

Dave had his hands out, frantically trying to counterbalance and keep his feet, and he felt the soft warp of space and wind as Five appeared next to him to steady him. The heavy tugging agony between his shoulder blades was still there, throbbing angrily, but he was at least keeping his feet under him. He glanced at Five gratefully, and sagged to the other side against the van.

“The hell’re you talking about?” He asked Ben.

“Well that didn’t take long,” Five muttered curiously to himself.

“What?” Dave asked.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Katz, you’ve mutated.” Five said.

It was then that Dave realized that surrounding Allison and Luther on the concrete was a very, very wide splattering of blood droplets on the concrete, some as far away as four or five paces, and a veritable hurricane of tiny, bloody downy feathers.

“Oh sweet _Jesus_ ,” Dave whimpered under his breath, closing his eyes.

When he opened them, he swallowed his panic and took a tiny peek over his shoulder. There, stretching out behind him, was an absolutely massive pair of fucking _wings,_ slicked and matted with blood and gunk. He immediately closed his eyes, slamming them shut, and his free hand gripped his face and scrubbed at his face and neck, trying to smother the panic.

“Oh god, oh my _god_. Those are attached aren’t they?” Dave whispered from under his hands.

Allison’s hand on his shoulder was a little shaky, but offered a comforting squeeze. There were muscles under her hands now that felt new and so achingly sore, twinging and tugging in strange directions.

Luther heaved up off the concrete, dusting himself off as well. “Figures we all turn out like Weird Science Mysteries extras and Dave’s a goddamn _angel_.”

Ben blew playfully at a feather in the wind. “You sound bitter.”

Luther scowled, but shook his head and gestured to the blood on the concrete, blood Dave could feel dripping sluggish and sticky down his back and collecting in the waist band of his pants.

“At least you can stow your freaky parts away somewhere,” Luther complained to Ben, “Mine are just out there for people to gawk at. Although something tells me Dave’s gonna get gawked at worse than me.”

Five shrugged, and Dave bit off a hysterical, slightly unstable laugh. “They’re…they’re really heavy.”

“Well your wingspan just went from zero to about the length of a truck,” Five commented, shrugging, “I’m sure it’ll take some getting used to. On the plus side, you should be able to actually fly without radically violating the laws of physics.”

“What the actual _fuck_ is going on here?” ChaCha exclaimed, gun flagging in the face of her shock.

Dave tensed in anger, and his wings, Jesus Mary and Joseph _his wings_ , flexed and fanned wide, tilting aggressively as if poised for take off and trembling, and the muscle movement alone made him want to cry out in agony. New muscles in every part of his upper body pulled and ached out at the motion and he fought to keep a straight face.

“Where’s Klaus?” He demanded.

ChaCha blinked. “Who?”

Rage coursed through him, and Dave swore in pain as his huge bloody wings gave an abortive flap, flinging viscera as though to shake it loose. He swallowed his cursing wince, and snarled, “My _fiance_. The one you kidnapped. Twice.”

ChaCha’s face twisted in disgust as a wad of something hit her face off of Dave's wing, but Hazel paled noticeably.

“That little fucker’s dead,” ChaCha said, wiping it off.

Dave leapt at her, the pain and the wings forgotten under the breathless fury that suddenly blinded him.

He tackled her to the ground in an instant, slamming her to the concrete, guns skittering away. His fist hit her jaw and then her cheek, again and again, bludgeoning her face in rage. “You’re—you’re _lying!”_ Dave rasped, still swinging at ChaCha’s bloodied face even as it went blurry in his eyes as they swam with tears.

“You…you have to be…lying,” Dave slowed down, clinging to her jacket and shaking the unconscious assassin.

“Dave, stop!” Allison’s voice called, but Dave couldn’t hear her.

It was only Hazel’s shaking voice that snapped him out of it. “Jesus, man, fucking stop! Of course she’s lying!!”

Dave rocked back on his heels in shock as the relief hit him like a wave. The breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding filled him with jagged gasps, and he panted. “Oh,” he gasped.

Hazel had his hands out in trembling placation, shaking with fear and eyes wide. Dave almost wanted to laugh, realizing what a picture he must make, shadowed by massive bloody wings like some kind of avenging angel.

“Man, you’re both fucking _psycho freaks!_ ” Hazel snapped.

Dave staggered to his feet, and nearly sobbed at the fresh pain that rocked through him from his wings, but he grimaced through it and leveled ChaCha’s gun on Hazel with blood slicked hands that didn’t shake, “You have _no idea_. Where is Klaus? Talk. _Now_.”

The others watched in muted horror, albeit Five with a degree of amused satisfaction.

Ben wrinkled his nose at the obvious urine stain that spread from Hazel’s crotch.

Hazel gulped, stammering nervously, “Look, man, okay we had him up at the old Flamingo Motel, and ChaCha kinda roughed him up a little but he was _fine_ , you know that’s just p-part of the job! She left him with me, and the crazy bastard made all these g-ghosts come out of fucking _nowhere_ , starts ranting about haunting me and shit. I panicked, so I ran out of there and by the time I got to the car, the cops were rolling up and me and ChaCha got the hell out there. He was alive when we left, okay, I _s-swear_!!”

Dave let the gun drop with swallowed grunt of pain and sighed, turning back to the others with a desperate look on his face. God, he was so _tired_ all of a sudden.

Luther cleared his throat, looking awkward. “Okay. So…Klaus is with the cops. See, Dave, he’s fine, everything's fine! We just go ask the, uh, nice police officers to get him back. We can bail Diego out while we’re at it. Easy.”

Five chuckled, eyebrow raised in that oh-so-condescended smirk Luther seriously hated. “Not such a dumb ape now, are you, Luther?”

Luther scowled, but Allison rolled her eyes. “Luther, go help Dave before he falls over.”

“Oh shit,” Luther said, leaping forward to catch Dave as he nearly collapsed, staggering into Luther’s oversized paws.

Luther stood there awkwardly for a moment holding him up, and glanced back at Allison. “I don’t even _want_ to touch these things.” Luther complained of Dave’s limp wings which had sagged over his back and to the ground like an oil soaked blanket. Dave hissed in pain when they made contact with the hot pavement, wings giving an abortive twitch to try and lift away from the frying pan heat, but too weak to manage.

“Jeez, Luther, suck it up,” Allison muttered and went to help as well. “He can obviously feel them. We need to get them off the ground, here, hold him up, I’ll do it.”

Dave gave a strangled scream when Allison’s hands gripped the wing bones closest to the joint that had formed near his back, and forced his wings to bend and pull together. Allison cursed as the wing in her hands bucked and flung her backwards, flexing hard.

Five sighed and headed for the payphone again.

Allison winced as she got up off the road and huffed in irritation. “Dave, honey, I need you to try and…control these things ok? I know they hurt, but they’re really big andwe need you to help…fold them up a bit, or we’re not gonna be able to get back in the van. We need to do that to get to Klaus.” Allisonwaited, hoping that the carrot of Klaus’s name would help pierce the fog of pain and confusion that had settled over the soldier.

“Klaus?” Dave rasped, “Yeah.” He agreed, but then shook his head.

“ _Hurts_ , Ally. Hurts so _bad_ ,” Dave’s voice got soft, nearly a whimper, and Allison winced. Luther’s hug like grip on him tightened, and Allison looked at Luther in surprise as the big man’s earlier awkwardness had softened into empathy that was almost painful to see.

One of his paw-like hands stroked the muscles of Dave’s back, digging in with massaging pressure, and Dave cried out in pain, squirming to get away from it, and Allison gasped, “Luther, what the hell, stop it! You’re hurting him!”

Luther shook his head, determined, and shifted grips to work the other side as well. “Trust me, okay Ally?”

Dave curled up in a tight ball of pain against him, shaking and quietly sobbing. But gradually, the muscles under Luther’s hands seemed to loosen, tension bleeding away and the wings relaxing from their tensed position. “Easy, bud, there you go,” Luther said softly.

Allison and Ben gawked at their brother, glancing at each other in shared surprise.

Dave gradually started breathing normally again, great gulps of air that had his whole body shaking with the after affects of the shock bleeding off. He sagged gratefully against Luther’s bulk as he kept up the firm massage, until Dave’s wings were pulled up folded against his back, blood soaked pinions just barely off the ground they were so big.

“Luther…” Allison said quietly in askance.

Luther shrugged, a slightly sad smile on his face. “I remember how much it hurts to move muscles you didn’t used to have. Felt like my whole body was just one big cramp, I could barely get out of bed for days. Figured this couldn’t be that different.”

Allison flinched a little, apology clear in her eyes. “Oh, Luther.”

“Thanks, brother,” Dave rasped weakly, slowly and cautiously extracting himself from Luther’s hold.

Luther’s own misty eyed look at Dave’s choice of words and genuine tone was painfully obvious as he met Dave’s eyes. “Don’t mention it.”

“If the emotional affirmation, _brotherly wing-groping and cuddling_ is over, I know where Klaus is,” Five krassly interrupted, calling from over by the payphone.

“Wow, Five, way to ruin the moment,” Ben griped. “Luther I am so _touched_ ,” he wiped at his eyes, exaggeratedly sniffling.

“He has feelings after all. What a revelation,” Five agreed.

“Alright, jeez, there’s no need to be a dick about it,” Luther grumbled.

“If I could continue?” Five asked, irritated. The others siblings turned to glare at him.

Allison rolled her eyes, and huffed, “By all means.”

“Klaus _is_ in fact alive. Both he and Diego are in the company of Diego’s lady cop, Detective Eudora Patch. Allison, if you could be a doll and help this nice _police officer still on the phone_ understand that we _really, really_ need to know where they are?” Five called.

Allison sighed, and walked over, picking up the greasy receiver from Five’s hand.

The officer’s voice on the other line sounded beleaguered, laced with frustrated irritation. “Look buddy, I told you already, I don’t care if the punk and his crack head brother are _your_ brothers, okay, I can’t disclose an officer’s location in an ongoing investig—”

“I heard a rumor you told me _exactly_ where Detective Patch is, along with both of my brothers, and forgot everything about this conversation after you told me,” Allison purred.

“Oh, well since you asked, sweetheart,” The officer answered, smitten and clueless to the psychic manipulation. Allison glared at Five over her shoulder.

“Patch called in about 20 minutes ago that the EMT’s had cleared the Flamingo Motel, and that her, that Batman wannabe guy she’s totally not banging and the junkie were all gonna go to that diner, you know Griddy’s? The one on Granby, good donuts, anyway, she said something about a lead.”

 _“_ Thank you, Officer,” Allison drawled.

The officer paused, “…Damn prank callers again, Bob!” he called to someone else in the office and hung up on her.

“Well?” Five demanded.

“Sounds like Klaus and Diego have a lead on something. And Patch is in on it, for better or for worse. They’re headed to Griddy’s.”

Five shook his head in disbelief. “Unbelievable. If Klaus is just jonesing for more waffles when we get there I’m going to choke that little asshole out myself.”

Dave gave Allison a grateful smile, still leaning on Luther’s shoulder.

Ben chimed in, “Yo, if we could find Dave a bird bath so he stops looking like a half digested dead pelican, that’d be really cool. He kinda smells and he’s gonna get the van all… sticky.”

“Goddamnit Ben, don’t start.” Allison snapped.

“It, uh, does kind of itch.” Dave agreed, chuckling. “But I think I’m kinda big for a bird bath.”

Ben giggled. “You are so Klaus’s soulmate. We’re keeping you.”

“Boy, I just got shot up with mutant juice and grew fucking wings, you ain’t getting rid of me if you tried.” Dave griped.

Allison rolled her eyes. “ _Children_.”

…

Hazel glanced down at the unconscious form of ChaCha, face a bloody pulp, and the beat up sedan, as the van full of former Umbrella Academy kids rolled away.   
"Man, the commission owes me so much hardship pay for this shit," he said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well most of you were right, lol. I'm predictable like that I guess, haha. Hope you enjoyed it, as always, I read and love all of your comments! More hopefully coming soon, we're into the last handful of main story line chapters! 🖤🦕


End file.
